Though based on a real-life exhibit, this outing lacks the fear factor.
Alejandro and his eighth grade classmates take a field trip to visit the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida, where they encounter the titular doll.
The museum hosts a glass-encased exhibit of a “haunted” toy by the name of Robert the Doll. The tour guide shares the story of the doll’s history and his weirdly devoted adult owner. The guide explains that taking Robert the Doll’s photo without permission brings bad luck that will lift only with a written apology. Naturally, Al breaks the rule. Not even a few minutes into the bus ride from the museum begins a string of bad luck for Alejandro. Al ultimately takes his apology letter to the museum to rid himself of this curse. The plot is predictable and, despite its content, lacks real suspense, as the author relies on horror tropes that demand a completely credulous audience for success. In the era of Stranger Things, which amps kid-horror to a captivating level of scary, all but the very newest to the genre will find this story lacking in tension, imagination, and originality. Continuing the series’ tour of actual, supposedly haunted U.S. locales, three other entries publish simultaneously: Phantom of the Tracks (New Jersey), A Starlet’s Shadow (California), and Swamp of Lost Souls (Louisiana).
Though based on a real-life exhibit, this outing lacks the fear factor. (Horror. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63163-348-5
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Aimed straight at proto-Goosebumps fans, this formulaic series opener pits two 9-year-olds against a great white shark with legs. Having lost his bike in a lake thanks to the latest hare-brained scheme of his impulsive cousin Henry, bookish Keats reluctantly agrees to finance a replacement by earning some money taking on odd jobs at a spooky local mansion. The prosaic task of weeding the garden quickly turns into an extended flight through a series of magical rooms after a shark monster rises out of the ground and gives chase. Dashing from one narrow squeak to the next, the lads encounter a kitchen with an invisible "sink," a giant vomiting bookworm in the library, a carpet pattern in the hall that (literally) bites and, most usefully, a magic wand that they get to keep (setting up future episodes) after spelling the monster away. Tilted points of view give the occasional illustrations more energy than the labored plot ever musters, and the characters rarely show even two dimensions. Fledgling readers will do better in the hands of Jim Benton’s Franny K. Stein series or Bruce and Katherine Coville’s Moongobble and Me books. (Horror. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86675-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Krensky spins a wisp of history into a diaphanous tale that's accompanied by arty illustrations that fail to add substance or even a sense of period. Thanks to the popularity of an actual series of reported sightings of “man-bats,” intelligent beavers and other strange life forms on the Moon that ran in the tabloid New York Sun in 1833, fictional newsboys Jake and Charlie enjoy temporary prosperity—meaning they can buy meals, and sleep in a bed rather than an alley at night. Jake’s imagination is fired with the idea that words, “even if they’re not quite true, ... can make us see amazing things,” but the hope that the paper will continue to offer such sensationalistic “news” for them to peddle each day is plainly the sharper concern. Krensky concentrates on conveying the newsboys’ hand-to-mouth existence; the stories themselves and the unsurprising later revelation that they were a hoax draw only brief references and quotes in the narrative. These are supplemented by clipped fragments of illegible printing held by the crudely drawn, sometimes anachronistically dressed figures in Bisaillon’s scraped, mud-colored collages. Don Brown’s Kid Blink Beats the World (2004) brings the life of 19th-century newsboys into sharper focus, and when it comes to examining popular hoaxes, Meghan McCarthy’s Aliens Are Coming! (2006) sets the bar. (afterword) (Picture book. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7613-5110-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
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