Hand to middle graders seeking horror laced with humor and tinged with budding romance.
Having saved Cauldron’s Cove from clones and zombies in previous books, Darius, Regan, and stepsiblings Sofia and Bennett reunite to protect their town once more.
Darius and his mom, the mayor of Cauldron’s Cove, are preparing for Halloween, a holiday that brings hordes of tourists to the town each year. When four carnival workers turn up drained of blood, levelheaded Darius, brainy and dyslexic Regan, prickly Sofia, and popular and resourceful Bennett investigate. A strange new family dressed in black has checked in to Regan’s family’s bed-and-breakfast, and Regan is crushing on their son…but could the newcomers be vampires? The four friends support each other through ups and downs—as when Regan is taunted by fatphobic bullies—all while stockpiling Super Soakers filled with holy water to wage war on the vampires. Intrepid readers who disregard the unseen narrator’s introductory warning of “super terrifying and grody scenes” to come will be rewarded. The narrator’s sophisticated vocabulary is balanced by the occasional mention of farts and “spoiler alerts.” The funny asides are most effective when they give readers a break from more intense moments. If scenes involving black vomit and bubbling skin seem a bit over the top for tweens, readers can’t say they weren’t warned. Darius is Black, while Sofia is Latine, and Regan and Bennett are white.
Hand to middle graders seeking horror laced with humor and tinged with budding romance. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781338815375
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map.
A girl who delights in the macabre harnesses her inherited supernatural ability.
It’s not just her stark white hair that makes 11-year-old Zee Puckett stand out in nowheresville Knobb’s Ferry. She’s a storyteller, a Mary Shelley fangirl, and is being raised by her 21-year-old high school dropout sister while their father looks for work upstate (cue the wayward glances from the affluent demography). Don’t pity her, because Zee doesn’t acquiesce to snobbery, bullying, or pretty much anything that confronts her. But a dog with bleeding eyes in a cemetery gives her pause—momentarily—because the beast is just the tip of the wicked that has this way come to town. Time to get some help from ghosts. The creepy supernatural current continues throughout, intermingled with very real forays into bullying (Zee won’t stand for it or for the notion that good girls need to act nice), body positivity, socio-economic status and social hierarchy, and mental health. This debut from a promising writer involves a navigation of caste systems, self-esteem, and villainy that exists in an interesting world with intriguing characters, but they receive a flat, two-dimensional treatment that ultimately makes the book feel like one is learning a ho-hum lesson in morality. Zee is presumably White (as is her rich-girl nemesis–cum-comrade, Nellie). Her best friend, Elijah, is cued as Black. Warning: this just might spur frenzied requests for Frankenstein.
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map. (Supernatural. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304460-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Deliciously dark and gripping.
Evie enters the otherworldly place called the Dark Sun Side, searching for Blight Harbor’s missing ghosts in this sequel to 2022’s The Clackity.
Twelve-year-old Evie Von Rathe returns, this time following the trail of missing ghost Florence and finding herself lured to the Dark Sun Side by ghoulish, evil Portia. Once there, Evie learns about the Radix, a swirling, black, oceanlike expanse of unforgiving magical power. In exchange for Evie’s return to the land of the living, Portia tasks her with retrieving the soul light from the center lantern of the Nighthouse. With the help of Bird, her tattooed sidekick who moves about her body at will, and a girl she meets on her journey named Lark, who is neither ghost nor human, Evie is pushed to her limits as she navigates this terrifying world on her important, soul-saving mission. Senf’s nightmarish, well-imagined supernatural landscape is original and compelling. Evie and Lark’s friendship is believably close and trusting, their shared pain and fear binding them together. Bird continues to be a scene-stealing companion, a necessary voice of reason and encouragement for Evie and readers alike. More than just a battle between good and supernatural evil, this story shows the ultimate power of empathy and tenacity. Readers will be left both satisfied by the ending and wanting more. Evie is cued white.
Deliciously dark and gripping. (Horror. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781665934633
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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