Facing a dangerous, otherworldly challenge, a resourceful young heroine discovers her strength.
Grace’s best friends are ghosts. So how can she say no when they ask her for help?
It’s summer vacation, and 12-year-old Grace, the book’s relatable narrator, is happy to leave the daily bullying at school behind. Labeled a weirdo and a loner, Grace does have friends: the ghosts she has interacted with all her life. So when Grace learns from them that a 300-year-old curse is keeping the ghosts in her small mountain town from moving on to their eternal rest—and that she might be able to help them—she agrees to try. Can Grace break the curse? And do witches—and mages, fairies, and mermaids—really exist? More than magic is happening here, however. Most male characters are sympathetic, including classmate Bain, who offers warmth and support. But this spooky tale is primarily female-centered and grounded in positive messages, as are the author’s previous two books for middle schoolers: Nellie Nova Takes Flight (2016) and Nellie Nova’s Summer on the Run (2018), about a time-traveling girl scientist. Grace grows as she sheds patterns of self-doubt and fear to realize her unusual gifts. Her mom and grandmother face their own, similar challenges, deepening the author’s message. One unfortunate distraction: Grace’s intermittent description of her ghostly friends as “ghouls,” a word customarily meaning the evil undead.
Facing a dangerous, otherworldly challenge, a resourceful young heroine discovers her strength.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73438-662-2
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Immortal Works Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Supernatural mystery meets generational drama with hopeful endings for all.
Eleven-year-old Frank must solve a supernatural mystery to save his new home.
As fifth grade comes to an end, Frank Fernández is looking forward to finally staying put in Alabama for a second year, as promised, after a childhood spent following his parents’ home renovation work all across the country. Frequent relocation has made Frank wary of forming friendships or making plans, but his hopes for more stability are temporarily dashed when his parents announce plans to renovate a lighthouse in the Florida Keys, near where his mother grew up and his father’s home country of Cuba. Papi promises this will be their last move, though: The lighthouse will be theirs. But from their first day on Spectacle Key, things seem to go wrong: Tensions rise between his parents, and Frank’s hopes of a forever home are under threat from seemingly supernatural forces. In order to put down roots, Frank and new ghostly friend Connie, a White girl with freckles, must discover what secrets the island is hiding, uncovering Frank’s own family roots along the way. Frank is a fan of horror—he names his new Great Dane puppy Mary Shelley. But though there is some mild peril to be found, rather than a ghostly thriller, this is an appealing, lightly spooky family drama with valuable lessons for those who would hide from a difficult past instead of confronting and healing generational trauma.
Supernatural mystery meets generational drama with hopeful endings for all. (Supernatural. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-313481-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark.
An animal ghost seeks closure after enduring aquatic atrocities.
In this sequel to The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter (2020), sixth grader Rex is determined to once again use his ability to communicate with dead animals for the greater good. A ghost narwhal’s visit gives Rex his next opportunity in the form of the clue “bad water.” Rex enlists Darvish—his Pakistani American human best friend—and Drumstick—his “faithful (dead) chicken”—to help crack the case. But the mystery is only one of Rex’s many roadblocks. For starters, Sami Mulpepper hugged him at a dance, and now she’s his “accidental girlfriend.” Even worse, Darvish develops one of what Rex calls “Game Preoccupation Disorders” over role-playing game Monsters & Mayhem that may well threaten the pair’s friendship. Will Rex become “a Sherlock without a Watson,” or can the two make amends in time to solve the mystery? This second outing effectively carries the “ghost-mist” torch from its predecessor without feeling too much like a formulaic carbon copy. Spouting terms like plausible deniability and in flagrante delicto, Rex makes for a hilariously bombastic (if unlikable) first-person narrator. The over-the-top style is contagious, and black-and-white illustrations throughout add cartoony punchlines to various scenes. Unfortunately, scenes in which humor comes at the expense of those with less status are downright cringeworthy, as when Rex, who reads as White, riffs on the impossibility of his ever pronouncing Darvish’s surname or he plays dumb by staring into space and drooling.
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5523-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
