Genre: Paranormal

Ghosted

When Ellie entered junior high, she promised herself that she would never look weak. She became the smartest, prettiest, best-dressed, and most popular kid at Lincoln Heights Middle School. She is also the most feared. Ellie has figured out that the more horrible she is, the more people fear her, and the more they respect her. Ellie has perfected the ability to manipulate people through fear.

The night of her junior high winter dance, Ellie has a terrible accident. As she lays unconscious, a ghost takes Ellie on a trip to her own past, present, and future. Ellie is forced to relive her parents’ divorce, her struggles with school, and the loss of her best friend, Marley. Can what Ellie sees, inspire her to change her ways?

From the first chapter, the story focuses on Ellie’s mean, manipulating ways. While the reader comes to understand the events that lead Ellie to become such a horrible person, it is hard to relate to her. When Ellie’s parents first divorced, Ellie was surrounded by her best friend Marley and Marley’s two dads. Instead of being comforted by their supportive presence, Ellie focused on what she didn’t have and “let those feelings of hurt and sadness fester into something ugly.” For the reader, Ellie’s ugliness overshadows every other aspect of the story.

Margolis clearly shows the dangers of Ellie’s meanness – both for Ellie and the people she encounters. However, some of the events are unrealistic and portray preteens as sheep who follow the most popular person out of fear. None of Ellie’s peers have the strength of character to stand up to Ellie, even when Ellie makes them do outrageous things. In reality, parents and teachers would have stepped in and protected Ellie’s classmates from her cruelty.

Ghosted follows the same format as The Christmas Carol, and like Scrooge, Ellie changes her ways. Ellie learns and finally admits that “making other people feel bad and weak distracts me from my own pain. And it props me up.” Ellie chooses to own up to her mistakes and apologize; however, the conclusion has several plot holes that readers will notice. For example, while at school Ellie falls and is unconscious for 15 minutes; however, the students do not get a teacher, and they call off the ambulance because when Ellie comes to, she feels fine. In addition, the story glosses over the hurt and pain that Ellie caused others and hints that all will be forgiven.

The story moves at a fast pace. The ghost, who is sarcastic and mean herself, adds interest. Although the message is pertinent to middle school readers, Ellie’s cruelty makes it hard to root for her. Readers looking for another story inspired by the Christmas Carol should pick up Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story by R. L. Stine. On the other hand, if you’re in the mood for a Christmas story that will leave you with a warm glow and a positive message, add the Celebrate the Season series by Taylor Garland to your must-read list.

 Sexual Content

  • Ellie takes a video of Marley, who is joking around. Marley pretends that she is boy crazy and says, “I have never kissed a boy, but sometimes at night I practice by kissing my old American Girl doll. I cut the hair off so she looks like a boy.”

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • On Christmas Eve, Ellie and her mom have dinner with friends. Ellie’s mom drinks a glass of wine.

Language

  • Ellie thinks that her classmates have “marshmallows-for-brains” and are morons.
  • The ghost calls Ellie stupid and a dummy.
  • Ellie thinks the ghost and her dad are both jerks.
  • OMG is used as an exclamation three times.
  • My God is used as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

  • After a fall, a ghost shows Ellie her past, present, and future self. The ghost can also read Ellie’s mind.
  • The ghost drags Ellie “from place to place, year to year, shrinking you down to fit into the snow globe, changing your regular outfit into a bikini for the fish tank, only to go and transform you back into your regular size.”
  • The ghost takes Ellie to different places. One of the places is a mural that some classmates made. Another place Ellie is transported to is a tunnel in a loaf of bread.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story

Rick Scroogeman hates Christmas. He can’t stand the carols or the pageants. He doesn’t like the lights or the mistletoe. But the worst part about the season is having to watch the old movie version of A Christmas Carol, especially since all of his classmates have started calling him Scrooge.

When Rick finds out that he didn’t get a part in the school play, he’s determined to get revenge. When Rick’s terrible prank successfully ruins Christmas for his classmates, he feels victorious. But when three ghosts appear, Rick realizes what he thought was just a nightmare might become real. Can anyone teach Rick the true meaning of Christmas?

Rick is truly a terrible boy. He thinks being mean is funny. He enjoys stomping on people’s feet, taking his brother’s jelly beans, and getting revenge. Rick bullies his way through life and doesn’t understand why so many people don’t understand his humor. When the Christmas ghosts appear, Rick learns how it feels to be bullied. Even though Rick learns how it feels to be bullied, the ending is ambiguous enough to make the reader wonder if Rick will change his horrid ways.

In Young Scrooge, Rick tells his own story. His snarky comments and ungrateful attitude show he is completely unaware of others’ feelings. When the ghosts take him to different realities, Rick is put on the receiving end of a bully. Yet for the majority of the story, Rick is more concerned with getting home and getting his Christmas gifts. Even though Young Scrooge is based on A Christmas Carol, the ending won’t give the readers a warm fuzzy feeling.

Readers who want to put a little horror into the holidays will find this ghost spooky but not scary. The story’s short chapters and easy vocabulary make the story easy to read. Even though the story shows the harmful effects of bullying, the story is never preachy. Although parents might find Young Scrooge lacking, younger readers will enjoy the fresh twist on A Christmas Carol. Young Scrooge will never become a Christmas classic, but it will entertain readers and would be a great conversation starter on bad behavior.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Rick splashes water on Davey. Rick thinks it’s funny because “everyone will see the dark spot on the front of his pants and think he had an accident.” When Davey gets mad, Rick slaps “him hard on the back. He goes sprawling into the yellow tile wall.”
  • When Jeremy asks Rick, “What do you want, Scrooge?”, it makes Rick angry so he tromps “down on the top of his sneaker as hard as I can with the heel of my shoe. . . That must hurt. He starts to hop up and down on one foot.”
  • When Rick walks into one of his classes, he sees Lucy. “First, I take my thumbs and smear the lenses on her glasses. Then I take both hands and ruffle her hair as hard as I can.”
  • Rick makes fun of a boy that stutters, then, “[he picks] him up by his waist and lifted him into his locker. And then [Rick] closed the locker door with him inside.”
  • While walking to the front of the class, Rick “tromped really hard on Josh Cratchit’s foot as I passed by him. I couldn’t believe how loud he screamed.” When Rick returns to his seat, he “gave it another good hard stomp as I passed.”
  • Josh sees Billy O’Brian, who is fat. Instead of calling Billy by his name, Rick calls him Belly O’Beast. Rick likes “to grab his big belly with both hands, jiggle it up and down, and shout, “‘Earthquake!’ especially when there are girls watching. Belly’s fat face always turns bright red.”
  • When Rick finds out that the kids did not want him to be in the play, Rick puts ants in their costumes. “Some kids sprawled on their backs, scratching. Others were frantically pulling off their costumes. I saw ants scurry out of the clothes and over the stage. Ants crawled all over Belly’s cheeks and forehead.”
  • When Rick gets home, he sees his brother Charlie. “I dropped my backpack on the floor. Then I grabbed both of his ears and tugged them as hard as I could.”
  • When Christmas carolers come to Rick’s house, he throws snowballs at them.
  • Rick is taken to a school in the past. A kid “raised his big boot and tromped his heel down as hard as he could on top of my right sneaker. . . pain shot up my leg, up my entire body. . . The pain was unbearable.”
  • When a girl laughs at Rick, he “grabbed the back of her hair and gave it a tug. You know. Playful. Not too hard.” The girl then dumps ink on Rick’s head.
  • A boy “stuck his foot out and tripped [Rick]. [Rick] stumbled into the big globe. Landed on top of it. And the globe and [Rick] rolled across the floor.”
  • While building snowmen with Ashley, Rick “grabbed up a big handful of snow and molded it into a snowball. . . and smashed it into Ashley’s face. [Rick] held it there, rubbing it over her cheeks and eyes.”
  • While in the future, Rick is taken to his grave. When he peers in it, he sees some of the kids from Dead Middle School. “They were huddled in my grave—and I could see right through them! They were transparent, all in shades of gray. No color. And now they raised their arms. All at once, they shot their arms up out of the hole. Hands wrapped around my feet. Two guys floated up and wrapped their arms around my waist.” Rick is able to pull himself free, but “One of the arms holding my waist fell off. The arm ripped off at the shoulder and fell to the dirt.” The scene is described over five pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Rick thinks most of the kids in his school are losers.
  • Mr. Pickwick didn’t give Rick a part in the play. Rick thinks it is because the teacher is a jerk.
  • When a girl dumps ink over Rick’s head, the other students laugh. Rick thinks, “I felt like a total jerk.”
  • The Ghost of Christmas Present takes Rick to his friends’ Christmas party. Rick overhears the kids saying he was a “total jerk.”

Supernatural

  • Rick sneaks into his attic looking for his Christmas presents. The attic door closes and the lights go out. Then, Rick sees “an eerie green-yellow mist swirling at the other end of the closet. . .It curled up on itself like a snake. [Rick] stared without breathing, without moving as the mist curled and uncurled, up to the closet ceiling, then down again.” The mist is replaced by a man. “His nose came to a sharp point. His eyes glowed red like burning coals.” The man is the ghost of Marly. The ghost discovers that he is in the wrong house and leaves.
  • After the ghost of Marly disappears, another one appears. “His long gray robe reached the floor, covering his whole body. It billowed like drapes at an open window, and I heard a sound like rushing wind. . . He turned toward me and I could see into the hood. I saw only blackness in there. No face. No face at all.” The ghost is the ghost of Christmas Past.
  • The ghost of Christmas Past touches Rick, then “The wind picked up again. . . [Rick] covered both of [his] ears with [his] hands as the blast sent [him] flying off the floor. Flying into a deep blackness.” When Rick opens his eyes, he is in the past.
  • After being in the past, the Ghost of Christmas Present appears and transports Rick to his time. “We plunged down, then started to slow. Colors swirled up in the gray, bright flashes of green and blue and red. So bright, I shut my eyes.” When he appears, Rick discovers he is now part of a different family.
  • While trying to leave his new family, two snowmen stop him. “I lowered my head and tried to swerve around it. But it moved quickly, silently gliding over the snow, staying close, pushing its big bulk in front of me. . . I pulled my arm back and shot my fist as hard as I could into my snowman’s frozen head” When another snowman comes near, Rick hits it as well. “The snowman didn’t seem to feel it. I tugged myself back—but now both hands were stuck in its icy grip. I pulled and pulled again, leaning as far back as I could, but I couldn’t free them.” One of the snowmen transforms into the Ghost of Christmas Present.
  • The Ghost of Christmas Future appears in the form of a robot and takes Rick to “Dead Middle School” where everyone is dead.
  • Rick hides in a closet. “And then I felt a puff of cold wind. I opened my eyes in time to see the closet fill with a purple light. . . The closet began to shake. The shelves rattled.” Rick is transported home.

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Archived #1

Contrary to the popular adage, the dead do in fact tell tales. Many of them. The dead, or Histories, are kept in a place hidden from the living world called the Archive, where only the Librarians can access them. But sometimes they wake, and they make it into the Narrows (the world between) and some are willing to kill to get back to the living world. Keepers are tasked with returning the lost Histories back to the Archive, and sometimes things get . . . messy.

When Da brought his twelve-year-old granddaughter, Mackenzie Bishop, into the Archive to have her take his place as Keeper, she quickly became a young, ruthless prodigy. After a tragedy, Mackenzie starts to see her brother in the eyes of the Histories that she has to return to the Archive. Mackenzie must confront the lines that separate the living and the dead. With the increases in disturbances in the Archive and someone erasing Histories, Mackenzie uncovers the secrets that keep the Archive in one piece.

Mackenzie and the other characters are extremely realistic, despite their fantastical stories. Headstrong and fiercely independent, Mackenzie struggles with grief over her brother’s death and the secrets about the Archive that she must keep from her family. She shows strength in her ability to own up to and correct her mistakes. Mackenzie’s struggles are wide-reaching and she is a sympathetic character. Her relationships with other characters, including the Librarian Roland and fellow Keeper Wes, help her improve as a person and bring some light to an otherwise somber story.

Despite the gothic nature of the titular place, the Archive itself is beautiful. Housing and tracking the Histories of the dead is a macabre business, and as one of the main locations in the novel, the Archive ironically has a life of its own. With a curious cast of Librarians and other personnel working within the structure, at times the Archive seems more alive than the outside world.

The Archived presents strong themes about grief, memories, and the line that separates life and death. Mackenzie, being only a teenager, tackles these topics that haunt all the characters—young, old, dead, and alive. The various ways her parents deal with death versus the ever-secretive Librarians’ ways of dealing with the dead serves to enhance the discussion about death and memories in particular. All the characters have regrets and push the line between the world of the living and the Archive, and their stories are ultimately determined by their abilities to deal with grief and the past.

Victoria Schwab paints an atmosphere that is equal parts magical and spooky in The Archived. Readers who want a darker book will be delighted by Schwab’s prose and wildly inventive world. The Archived sets up an interesting series with much to discover. In the sequel, The Unbound, more secrets are revealed through Mackenzie’s next adventures. The Archived shows that the dead never really leave us, as long as their memories live on in those that they loved.

Sexual Content

  • Mackenzie dreams of being normal, and in her dreams, she “kisses a boy.”
  • Mackenzie’s very elderly neighbor confuses Mackenzie for a kiss-a-gram. Mackenzie eventually tells him, “Sir, I’m not here to kiss you.”
  • One of the escaped Histories kisses Mackenzie. She says, “as his lips press against my skin, the silence flares in my head, blotting something out. Heat ripples through my body, pricking my senses as the quiet deadens my thoughts. He kisses my throat, my jaw. Each time his lips brush my skin, the heat and silence blossom side by side and spread, drowning a little bit of pain and anger and guilt, leaving only warmth and want and quiet in their place.” The description continues for a couple of pages, and this situation happens a couple of times.
  • Fellow Keeper Wes kisses Mackenzie. Mackenzie describes, “I’m about to speak, about to tell him that, tell him everything, when he brings his hand to the back of my neck, pulls me forward, and kisses me . . . all I can think is that he tastes like summer rain. His lips linger on mine, urgent and warm. Lasting.”

Violence

  • Mackenzie’s little brother Ben was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Mackenzie describes the accident. “It was a normal day, right up until the point a car ran a red light two blocks from Ben’s school just as he was stepping from the curb. And then drove away.” Later, she recalls a memory. “The cops are talking to Dad and the doctor is telling Mom that Ben died on impact, and that word—impact—makes me turn and retch into one of the hospital’s gray bins.”
  • Some Histories, or ghosts from the Archive, are called “Keeper-Killers, the Histories who manage to get out through the Narrows and into the real world.” As the name suggests, these Histories kill Keepers to escape.
  • Mackenzie had to face trials to become a Keeper. In a memory, Mackenzie narrates, “Da told me to be ready for anything, and it’s a good thing he did, because between one moment and the next, [the examiner’s] posture shifts . . . I dodge the first punch, but he’s fast, faster even than Da, and before I can strike back, a red Chuck connects with my chest.” This sequence continues for a couple of pages.
  • One of the Histories has a knife and attacks Mackenzie. She saw metal, “and jump[ed] back just in time, the knife in his hand arcing through the air, fast.” Other Histories escape and attack Mackenzie as well.
  • Da taught Mackenzie how to fight. In her memory, she recalls, “You take me out into the summer sun to show me how to fight. Your limbs are weapons, brutally fast. I spend hours figuring out how to avoid them, how to dodge, roll, anticipate, react. It’s get out of the way or get hit.”
  • With her Archive-granted ability to see into the past, Mackenzie sees the memory of a guy murdering a girl in a hotel. The guy swipes “a large shard of glass from the floor . . . He’s on top of her, and they are a tangle of glass and blood and fighting limbs, her slender bare feet kicking under him as he pins her down. And then the struggle slows. And stops . . . I can see her, the lines carved across her arms, the far deeper cut across her throat.”
  • A series of deaths occurred within months of each other, some look like suicides and some look like accidents. Mackenzie learns that the circumstances for each death are fuzzy at best. She wonders, “Did he jump or was he pushed? Did Marcus hang himself? Did Eileen trip?”
  • A History stabs Wes. Mackenzie watches as “Wes throws another fist, and Owen catches his hand, pulls him forward, and plunges the knife into his stomach.” Wes is severely injured but survives.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Da smokes “a cigarette.” He is a lifelong smoker.
  • Mackenzie can “read” objects by touching them. When she’s reading a bloodstained floor in the hotel, she sees a boy who “judging by his feverish face and the way he sways, he’s been drinking.”
  • Mackenzie’s very elderly neighbor shows up and “a thin stream of smoke drifts up from his mouth, where a narrow cigarette hangs.”

Language

  • Profanity is occasionally used. Profanity includes damn, ass, bastard, and hell.

Supernatural

  • Mackenzie is a Keeper who returns wandering Histories, or ghosts, back to the Archive, which is “a library of the dead, vast and warm, wood and stone and colored glass, and all throughout, a sense of peace.” Mackenzie travels between worlds and encounters quite a few dead people.

Spiritual Content

  • Da shows that he’s somewhat superstitious/spiritual, and Mackenzie has the same superstitions. Before entering the Narrows, Mackenzie says, “I pull Da’s key from around my neck, running a thumb over the teeth the way he used to. For luck, Da used to rub the key, cross himself, kiss his fingers and touch them to the wall—any number of things. He used to say he could use a little more luck.”
  • Wes refers to his dad’s new fiancée as “Satan in a skirt.”
  • Wes reads part of Dante’s Inferno. He says, “When you think about it, the Archive is kind of like a Hell.”

by Alli Kestler

The Ghost Collector

Ghosts don’t scare Shelly. As an apprentice to her ghost-hunting grandma, Shelly catches ghost cats, dogs, and raccoons in her hair. She helps them move on to wherever comes after death. Shelly watches her grandma do the same with people. It’s what the Cree women in their family have always done.

When Shelly’s mom is in a terrible accident and dies, Shelly’s world is completely shattered. Now, Shelly wants to know what happens after death. Where do all of the ghosts go? Why do some spirits stay as ghosts? Shelly is in a desperate search to find her mother’s ghost. She wants to talk to her mother one last time. If Shelly’s mom loved her, wouldn’t she come back as a ghost?

Without her mom, everything has changed. Now, Grandma doesn’t take Shelly to hunt ghosts. Shelly feels lost and alone. She knows she’s breaking the biggest rule of ghost-hunting: it’s not right to force spirits to stick around. Shelly never intended to keep ghosts hidden in her bedroom, but when she’s surrounded by ghosts she doesn’t feel as lonely. If she keeps hunting ghosts, maybe she will eventually find her mother’s ghost.

The Ghost Collector uses a unique premise to show one girl’s struggle with grief. In a desperate attempt to understand her mother’s death, Shelly questions several ghosts about the afterlife. At first, Shelly is angry and confused because her mother doesn’t reappear as a ghost. However, by the end of the story, Shelly accepts her mother’s death and is able to put away the belief that if her mother loved her, she would have come back as a ghost. The Crees’ beliefs are intertwined with the story, which gives Shelly an added depth.

As Shelly’s grandmother teaches her about ghosts, she also teaches her a set of rules. For example, Grandma teaches Shelly that “we’re not supposed to charge everyone for their ghost.” However, after Shelly’s mother dies, everything begins to change and Grandma begins breaking her own rules. Grandma says, “Sometimes the rules are what you make them. Sometimes they need to be bent—broken. Sometimes the world is made of hard choices.” Shelly is angry and confused that Grandma doesn’t follow her own rules, and soon Shelly thinks she also doesn’t need to follow the rules.

Shelly encounters a variety of ghosts who have various reasons for not passing on, including confusion, fear, and unfinished business. One of the ghosts encourages Shelly to spend more time with the living. The ghost tells Shelly, “I’ve got nothing but time. You, on the other hand, still need to get through the business of living. Enjoy it. Being dead isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Some readers, especially ones who are experiencing grief, may be disturbed by the way ghosts are portrayed (see below for specifics). The Ghost Collector allows the reader to see Shelly’s mixed emotions and understand her grief. At times Shelly’s grief is heart-wrenching, but her personal growth is also inspiring. The Ghost Collector is an engaging story that will allow readers to explore the topic of death. Parents may want to use the story to begin a discussion of the difficult topic of death.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Shelly thinks back to when she was younger and a classmate “cut off the end of her braid and when she hit him the principal said they were both wrong and called their parents. . . Shelly’s mom said she didn’t see how her daughter hitting a kid after he cut her hair was an unreasonable response.” Later Shelly’s mother told her, “Hitting people shouldn’t be your first response, but fighting back when someone tries to bully you isn’t a bad thing.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The women in Shelly’s family can see ghosts. “Shelly’s grandma teaches her about ghosts, how to carry them in her hair. If you carry your ghost in your hair, you can cut them off when you don’t need them anymore. Otherwise, ghosts cling to your skin, dig their fingers in under your ribs, and stay with you long, long after you want them to.”
  • Shelly’s grandmother helps people get rid of ghosts, and Shelly often goes with her. One woman asked for Shelly’s grandmother’s help. When Shelly and her grandmother go to the woman’s house, “Shelly can see the ghost that haunts the lady’s apartment dancing around her feet. It’s a little dog with a constantly wagging tail, trotting around on tiny paws with nails that click against the hardwood floors. . . Shelly catches the dog in the ends of her hair then scoops it into her arms . . . when the puppy licks her face it feels like someone is rubbing an icicle against her cheek.”
  • Several times in the book, Shelly’s grandmother helps animal ghosts move on. “Animal ghosts tend to be simple—the spirits of creatures that haven’t realized they’re dead yet. Being outside helps them fade away because a ghost removed from an anchor—whether that’s its home where it died, a favorite place, or a grave—will start to fade unless someone tries to keep it around. . . Shelly and her grandma use their hair like a net, like a fishing lure. They let ghosts cling to them and act as a hook to carry the dead to new places, places where they won’t be tied to anything and will be able to fade.”
  • One of the characters is the ghost of a teen, who sits on his gravestone. When he talks, “his mouth moves, but his voice comes from the headphones around his neck. . . Ghosts don’t usually come with accessories—Joseph having the player and headphones means he was buried with them.” Joseph tells Shelly, “I don’t know why some people stay and some people go. I don’t know why I stayed, except I was less scared of being a ghost forever and being stuck here, alone, than of whatever comes next.’
  • Estella stays at the graveyard where she was buried. She wants to wait and see her headstone.
  • Shelly and her grandmother help a raccoon move on. When Shelly first sees it, she thinks, “It’s an easy ghost. A raccoon that got stuck in the chimney. He looks furious about being stuck. When Shelly lets down her hair, he grabs hold of it eagerly, pulling himself free from the shaft and climbing straight into her arms.”
  • Shelly and her grandmother go to a friend’s house to get rid of a ghost. Shelly “feels the ghost as soon as she steps into the house. . .There’s nothing nice feeling about this ghost at all. It’s like static electricity all along her skin—a prickling sensation that makes the hair on her arms stand up and has her shivering.” When the ghost appears, “It looks like static, too, all flickering black and white and gray. . . it doesn’t walk, just flashes on and off, on and off. . .” The scene is described over two and a half pages.
  • While learning about ghosts, Shelly learns that “sometimes the dead are just confused about what happened, so they don’t move on. Sometimes they’re angry or upset. Sometimes, like Estelle, they do want to stay so they can do one last thing. But ghosts can get stuck, and that’s when hauntings happen.” Sometimes when “people throw out old things, ghosts go with them on their way to find a new home—confused spirits Shelly and Grandma used to snip off objects and bundle up to set free later.”
  • Shelly and her grandmother go to a house because a ghost was knocking pictures off the wall. When they arrive to set the ghost free, they see a “bird is sitting on top of a bookshelf. Its feathers are ruffled up and it looks about as disgruntled as a bird can look. . . Grandma bundles her hair up around the bird and holds it there until she’s sure it’s caught.”
  • Shelly meets the ghost of a little boy, who is confused and angry. He wants to know where his mother is.
  • When Shelly gets mad at Joseph, she “lashes out and kicks her foot through Joseph’s immaterial body and he topples over from the force of it, coming uprooted from his spot on the ground by his grave. . . He flickers, like the man who Grandma once dredged up from the river.” Joseph is scared and confused “as he twists in place and tries to claw his way back toward his grave, his spot.”
  • Shelly learns that “Death is going to happen to everyone, but knowing when it’s going to happen, choosing when you make the transition from life to death, choosing whether or not you’ll be a ghost and stick around a little longer, isn’t something most people get the chance to do.” She also learns that “Ghost are echoes of the person they once were. They fade away slowly, personalities and memories eroding over time.”

Spiritual Content

  • Shelly’s mom asks her if she wants to eat or go to the thrift store. Shelly says she wants to eat. Her mother replies, “Thank God, I’m starving.”

The Forgotten Girl

On a cold winter night, Iris and her best friend Daniel sneak into the woods to play in the freshly fallen snow. There, Iris makes a perfect snow angel—only to find the crumbling gravestone of a young girl named Avery Moorse right beneath her.

Soon strange things start to happen to Iris. She begins having vivid nightmares. She thinks she sees the shadow of a girl lurking in the night, and she feels the pull of the abandoned grave calling her back to the woods…

Obsessed with figuring out what’s going on, Iris and Daniel start to research their town. They discover that Avery’s grave is actually part of an abandoned black cemetery, dating back to a time when white and black people were kept separate in life—and in death. They become determined to restore Avery’s grave and have proper respect finally paid to Avery and the others buried there.

Unfortunately, they have summoned a jealous and demanding ghost, one who’s not satisfied with their plans. She is tired of being overlooked and wants Iris to be her best friend forever—no matter the cost.

The Forgotten Girl is a heart-stopping ghost story intertwined with the historical significance of racism. As Iris and Daniel research their town’s history, they learn about when their junior high was desegregated and the history of segregated cemeteries. The story delves into history, but the examples of racism are completely integrated into the story and never feel like a lecture. Through the characters’ eyes, readers will be able to understand how racism isn’t always overt, but it is always painful.

The story also shines a light on how grief can change people’s lives. When Daniel’s father dies, Daniel becomes fearful and cautious. He spends more time at home and no longer spends time with his friends. However, Daniel is not the only person affected by a death. When Daniel’s grandmother, Suga, was a teenager, her best friend died during a snowstorm. The loss of her friend caused Suga to become fearful and superstitious. Through their experiences, the reader learns the importance of not allowing fear to control your life.

Iris and Daniel’s friendship will draw the reader into the story, but readers will keep reading because of the creepy events that happen. The Forgotten Girl uses an engaging story to present historical information that is both interesting and relevant. At the end of the book, the author’s note gives historical information about abandoned graveyards and her inspiration for the story. However, sensitive readers should be wary of reading The Forgotten Girl because the ghostly events are frightening; readers will be able to imagine the events happening to them. Despite this, The Forgotten Girl should be on everyone’s reading list because of the historical information and positive lessons.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While doing research, Iris and Daniel learn about when Nelson’s Pond Middle School was desegregated. “There were protests…Avery and the others were spit on, their hair was pulled, and things were thrown at them, when all they wanted to do is go to school. To learn.”
  • A ghost tries to drown Iris so they can be “forever friends.” Daniel sees Iris. “Iris’s head broke the surface of the pond, her mouth open to take a loud gasp of breath, before she was pulled back underwater…she’s pushed Iris into the pond and held her under. Iris tries to fight her, but couldn’t, her arms going right through her instead.” Iris survives the attack. The scene is described over six pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Suga has many superstitions. Suga believes that “Babies can talk to angels, you know.”
  • Suga believes that the snow spirits snatch children. She tells Iris the tale. “When you hear the winter wind, that’s the sound of their screaming. That’s when you’ll know spirits of the snow are ready for their feeding. Wandering children are their prey, lonely in the night. They take the children in the snow, feeding on their fright.”
  • When someone drops their fork, that means they will get an unexpected visitor soon.
  • Suga tells Iris, “If you looked over your left shoulder and saw a ghost, it was probably the devil. If you looked over your right, it was likely an angel.”
  • Suga tells Daniel, “Well, if a ghost is attached to a person, they’ve lost their way to where they were trying to go in the first place… They need to be led to where they need to go, so they can rest. A ghost obsessed with a person is a lost spirit.”
  • When Iris and Daniel are lost in the woods, Daniel “silently prayed, thought about his father… Daniel saw a light. He let himself become relieved. He was starting to see houses!” Iris is afraid that the light is a trap, but Daniel “didn’t think so. He didn’t feel afraid. The light felt like basketball and comic books and trying ties and haircuts…” When Daniel touches the ball of light, “a familiar, warm comfort washed over him. He felt the excitement he used to feel from holding a basketball. He felt his dad telling him that it would be all right, that he was proud of him. That he was at peace.”

Spiritual Content

  • While sneaking out of the house, Iris “tiptoed down the stairs praying that they wouldn’t creak.”
  • When Iris hears a tap-tap-tap, she “prayed that the spirits of the snow wouldn’t come for her tonight in her dreams.”
  • Iris falls asleep. When a noise wakes her up, “she stared straight at the ceiling, realizing she’d fallen asleep praying.”
  • Iris and her family go to church. “The pastor talked about the importance of helping those in need, talking about some of the community service drives they were holding…” During the church service, “they prayed their benediction.”
  • When Daniel’s family go to visit his father’s grave, “Suga closed her eyes in prayer.”
  • Before the meal, Iris’s sister “said a singsongy prayer.”
  • When Iris sneaks out of the house, the neighbor turned on the porch light and yelled to see if anyone was near. Iris “ran past the neighbors’ house, praying that they were already back in bed, not looking for anyone anymore.”

Archimancy

Cordelia Liu wasn’t happy to leave California. As soon as she stepped into Shadow School, she knew things were going to be different. Still, she didn’t expect the school grounds to be filled with ghosts.

Cordelia soon realizes she’s not the only one who can see the ghosts; her new friend Benji can too. Together with super-smart Agnes, the trio are determined to find out why the ghosts are there and whether there’s a way to set them free.

But the school was created with more sinister intentions, and someone is willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure that the ghosts remain trapped forever. Cordelia and her friends don’t know who they can trust. Do they need to fear the living, the dead, or both?

Shadow School isn’t just another ghost story. White creates a unique setting that is spooky without being overly frightening. Cordelia and her friends are somewhat stereotypical, but readers will still enjoy the brainy Angus, the sullen cute Benji, and the curious Cordelia. As Cordelia and her friends help the ghosts leave Shadow School, readers may be slightly disappointed that the ghosts’ stories lack detail. Instead of delving into the ghosts’ personal stories, the ghosts are quickly dispatched.

Even though Cordelia solves each problem quickly, readers will still enjoy the mystery behind Shadow School as well as the character’s interactions. Since Cordelia is a new student at Shadow School, she struggles to make friends. Throughout the story, Cordelia learns the importance of forgiveness as well as the importance of being friends with people who are different than her.

Cordelia is far from a perfect character, but her flaws make her relatable. She has awkward moments with her parents, she isn’t sure who she can trust, and she doesn’t always know what to do. Cordelia thinks about ignoring the ghosts, but decides to continue helping them because “easy choices were seldom the right ones.”

Shadow School has just the right amount of mystery, friendship, and frightening scenes to keep middle school readers engaged. Readers will have to use context clues to decipher difficult vocabulary, such as pealegume, tessellating, assuage, and spile. Told from Cordelia’s point of view, Shadow School gives readers an exciting peek into a paranormal world. Readers who enjoy Shadow School will also enjoy Nightbooks, another spooky story written by J.A. White.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While eating lunch, a food fight starts. “A plate of lasagna smacked” a boy in the face and “a piece of stringy cheese dangled from his nose as he searched for the culprit. . . Trays flew through the air, raining down lasagna, pizza, bagels, fries, sticky beverages, and the occasional healthy salad. There were no hurricane-forced gales, no apparent cause for the objects to be moving on their own. . . The table next to Cordelia was rumbling like a volcano about to erupt. She pulled Grant to safety as it slid across the room, right where they had been standing a moment before.” As the kids run out of the cafeteria, Cordelia sees a ghost. The chaos is described over three pages.
  • Cordelia hears a ghost whistle a lullaby and “Cordelia felt her limbs grow sluggish and saw the boy. . . could barely stay awake. His eyes fluttered, and he tottered uneasily from side to side before falling through the wall.” As Cordelia watches the ghost grab a tool with “a long pincer on one end, black and jagged like the claw of a prehistoric crustacean . . . the green-eyed ghost dug the pincer into the back of the hipster and pressed a trigger at the opposite end. The edges of the pincer closed. The green-eyed ghost pulled backward, and the hipster seemed to leap out of himself, though the version gripped by the pincer quickly deflated and hung like a suit of clothes.” Cordelia figures out that the ghosts fade away because someone snatched parts of them.
  • When Cordelia and her friend try to take blueprints out of a hidden office, a ghost sees them. The ghost named Elijah “raised his arm and point[ed] to the left, where the bronze compass that had been sitting on the table now hovered in the air, its rusty but still serviceable point extended in their direction. As Cordelia watched, the compass was joined by a utility knife and two pairs of scissors, while a row of sharpened pencils took position to their right.” A boy ghost “came out of nowhere, plowing shoulder-first into the back of Elijah’s legs and knocking him over.” Because of the boy ghost, Cordelia and her friend are able to escape. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Cordelia and her friends plan to trap the evil ghost in a ghost box. When one of the evil ghosts (Lenny) tries to grab Cordelia, “the hiker reached out and wrapped her arms around him. Lenny tried to shake her off, but the hiker dragged him backward with a fierce look of determination. Within a few moments, his entire body was inside the ghost box with her.”
  • As Cordelia goes down a hall, “the lockers to either side of her began to rumble and shake. . . Locks burst open and shot across the hall at dangerous speed. Cordelia heard one whiz past her ear while another clipped her wrist, sending a lightning bolt of pain all the way to her elbow. She broke into a run.” School supplies begin hitting Cordelia, then “the world went black.”
  • An evil ghost named Geist tries to get rid of Cordelia. When he catches her, “Cordelia suddenly rose two feet into the air and drifted toward the cart. She tried to fight it, but Geist was too powerful.” Cordelia’s friends save her and they capture Geist. “Cordelia grabbed a tool of her own and got to work, fastening the claw to Geist’s hip. The ghost snatcher spun in her direction, his green eyes glowing with malevolence, but there was nothing he could do. . .One, Geist was gone. Two, each one of their snatching tools now held a sad, deflated sac of skin.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Cordelia googled “Good Spirits” and instead of getting information on ghosts, the search “took her to a list of stores that sold alcohol.”
  • Agnes makes brownies and shares them with adults. Then she tells them, “I added crème de menthe. That’s alcohol!”

Language

  • Heck is used twice.
  • Cordelia says a boy is “a jerk.”
  • While telling a story Agnes says, “some idiot dumped a few northern snakeheads into a pond in Maryland. . .”

Supernatural

  • Some of the characters can see ghosts. The number of ghosts is “always changing. New ones arrive. Old ones fade away.” One of the characters explains, “Ghosts stay in one small area. A bench, like Newspaper Man. Or the gym, like the boy. There’s a doctor wearing green scrubs who mostly sticks to the supply closet, but sometimes she rushes down the hallway with her hands up in the air. It always happens real quick, like she’s just been called into surgery.”
  • Cordelia puts glasses near the Newspaper Man. When he puts them on, he “flipped to the next page and propped his feet up on the table. All the frustration left his body. . . A black triangle the size of a welcome mat appeared in the air above him, hovering a few inches below the ceiling. . . The triangle grew until it was half the size of the room. . . It slid open from the bottom, like a garage door, revealing a gentle, flickering light that brought to mind a cozy fireplace on a cold winter’s night.” The man enters the triangle and disappears.
  • Cordelia puts blush by a woman who continues to look in the mirror. When the woman picks it up, “the black triangle appeared a few moments later.” When the door slid open this time, Cordelia saw a room with “bright, pulsating light of a party.”
  • The ghosts that disappear “don’t seem so happy about it. Almost like they’re sick. . .”
  • Cordelia and her friends discuss what a poltergeist is. Someone explains, “It’s a special kind of ghost that can move objects around.”
  • The kids find the blueprints to make a box that traps ghosts. The owner of the school “believed that if he studied these [haunted] houses and tracked the similarities between them, he could use this knowledge to build a haunted house on purpose. He called this process archimancy.”
  • Ghosts have special goggles that let them see the living.
  • When an evil ghost whistles a tune, “the music wrapped itself around [Cordelia], squeezing the tension from her muscles and soothing all her worries. Cordelia know she should run, especially when she saw Whistler climb the first few rungs of the ladder, but moving required a huge amount of energy that she no longer possessed.” The Whistler grabs Agnes’ cheeks and “she instantly began to shiver. . . Agnes’s lips began to turn blue.” Someone blows a whistle and the “shrill sound was deafening in the small, round, overpowering Whistler’s song.” The kids are able to escape.
  • When an evil ghost, the Whistler, touches an object, a red triangle appears. “Instead of hovering in the air like its black siblings, the triangle lay flat on the floor, gleaming like a poisonous candy apple. It slid open. Puffs of smoky darkness polluted the room. . . Cordelia heard factory sounds: the pump of pistons, rumble of heavy machinery, roar of a furnace. And screams. There were lots of screams.” The Whistler falls into the triangle and the triangle vanishes.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Tunnel of Bones

Cassidy isn’t excited to be in one of the most haunted cities in the world—Paris. While her parents are filming their TV shows about haunted cities, Cassidy doesn’t plan on attracting danger. But when her parents take her to the creepy underground Catacombs, Cassidy finds danger lurking in the shadows.

When Cassidy accidentally awakens a frightening, strong spirit, she must rely on her still-growing skills as a ghost hunter and her friends, both old and new, to help her unravel a mystery. As the spirit grows strong, Cassidy realizes that she’s not the only one in trouble. Soon the ghost causes disaster after disaster, which endangers the people Cassidy loves. Can Cassidy stop the angry spirit, or will he haunt her city forever?

The second installment of the City of Ghost series will not disappoint. As Cassidy follows her parents through Paris, Cassidy gets a firsthand look at some of Paris’s ghostly stories. While many of the ghostly encounters could be deadly, Cassidy’s best friend (and ghost), Jacob, is always waiting in the shadows in order to keep Cassidy out of trouble. Readers will enjoy Cassidy’s inquisitive mind and courage.

Cassidy’s adventures take her into Paris’s underground as well as to several of Paris’s landmarks. The adventure is at times creepy and suspenseful, but always interesting. Tunnel of Bones adds several new and interesting twists. As Cassidy tries to help a young ghost remember his past, she begins to wonder if Jacob will also begin to lose his memory of his earthly life. The parallel between the two ghosts adds an interesting dimension to the story.

Tunnel of Bones will entertain readers with a good ghost story. The easy-to-read text contains short sentences and offers action, description, and dialogue. Although several ghosts make a short appearance that does not enhance the plot, a little boy ghost continues to reappear which gives the story an air of mystery and unexpected danger. Cassidy’s faithful friends and encounters with frightening ghosts mixed with a dash of humor creates a highly entertaining ghost story. Although Tunnel of Bones can be read as a stand-alone novel, readers will not want to miss the first book of the series, City of Ghost.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When Cassidy goes into the Veil, she drops a necklace and begins to look for it. “But before I can reach it, the ghost grabs me by the collar and pushes me back against a tree. I try to twist free, but even though he’s a ghost and I’m not, the Veil levels the playing field.” Cassidy’s friend Jacob comes to her aid. “The ghost looks sideways just as Jacob swings the bucket at his head. The man staggers, black tar dripping down his face, and I gasp, dropping to the ground.” Cassidy uses her mirror to send the man on. The scene is described over three pages.
  • In order to see a ghost, Cassidy climbs onto a roof. When the ghost sees her, he pushes her off the roof. Cassidy is “falling, and somewhere between the edge of the roof and the lawn below, I cross back through the Veil and land hard on the ground beside the crypt. The fall knocks all the air from my lungs and sends pain jolting up through my right arm, and for a second all I can do is blink away the stars and hope I didn’t break anything.” Cassidy’s arm “zings” but she isn’t seriously injured.
  • When Cassidy opens the Veil, she sees a man “in an old-fashioned suit. He lifts an old-fashioned pistol and aims it straight at me, and Jacob wrenches me back out of the Veil before the shot goes off.”
  • The poltergeist opens the back door of a truck and “the contents begin to spill out. Boxes and crates smash into the street, followed by a massive golden frame that hurtles straight towards me.”
  • When Cassidy goes into the Veil, she is on a train car. When she changes train cars, she sees a ghost. “And as he turns, I see the knife buried in his stomach. His own hand curled around the blade as if to keep it from falling out. The sheen of blood running down his front.” Jacob drags Cassidy out of the train car and slams the door.
  • While looking for the poltergeist, Cassidy runs into a man. “The man snarls and grabs me, shoving me against a wall of bones that rattle as they dig into my back. I gasp, but I manage to swipe the cap from his head before Jacob lunges at the spirit from behind, hauling him backwards. . . Jacob slams the other ghost into a pillar of skulls. The bones topple with a crash, and the man drips, dazed, to his hands and knees.” Cassidy and Jacob run away.
  • In order to help the poltergeist remember his past, Jacob grabs ahold of the boy. The boy “thrashes, trying to twist free. The air around him ripples and glows red, and the whole tunnel begins to shake as the crimson light spreads over everything, splitting across the floor, the ceiling and the walls of bone. . . The whole ground begins to shake with the force of Thomas’s displeasure. Even the wall of bones to my left begins to tremble and shift.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone tells a story about a man that was invited to a party. When the man goes to the party, “he found a party in full swing, and passed the night with music and wine and excellent company. . . And then something hits me. Not the frame, but a pair of hands. They plant themselves against my back and shove, and I stumbled forward to the pavement, scraping my palm as the frame crashes into the stone wall and rains glass onto the street behind me.”
  • Cassidy’s parents are in their hotel room “sharing a bottle of red wine.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Cassidy’s best friend, Jacob, is a ghost and can read her mind.
  • Cassidy can travel through the Veil and the in-between where ghosts live. Cassidy explains, “That’s the thing about the Veil: It only exists where there’s a ghost. It’s like a stage where spirits act out their final moments, whatever happened that won’t let them move on.”
  • When Cassidy goes into the Veil, “the world around me—vanishes. The carnival lights, the crowds, the sounds and smells of the summer night. Gone. For a second, I’m falling. And then I’m back on my feet.”
  • In order to get a ghost to move beyond the Veil, Cassidy holds up a mirror for the ghost to look into. Then she says, “Watch and listen, see and know. This is what you are.” When Cassidy says the words, “the whole Veil ripples around us, and the ghost thins until I can see through him, see the dark thread coiled inside his chest. Lightless, lifeless. I reach out and take hold of the thread, the last thing binding him here, to this world. It feels cold and dry under my fingers, like dead leaves in the fall. As I pull the cord from his chest, it crumbles in my palm. Vanishes in a plume of smoke. And then, so does the ghost.” Cassidy completes the same pattern on two other ghosts, and the ghosts disappear.
  • Cassidy awakens a poltergeist. Cassidy’s friend tells her, “It’s a spirit drawn to spectral energy… It was probably dormant until it sensed yours, Cassidy. . . That cold sensation you’ve been feeling, it is a kind of intuition, a warning that strong spirits are near. . . Poltergeists are wanderers. They’re not stuck in a loop or a memory, and they’re not tied to the place they died.”
  • While trying to understand ghosts, Cassidy calls a friend that tells her “the Veil is tailored to fit the ghost, [and] the place they died, which means it’s essentially tied to the ghost’s memory—that’s what binds it there. So if a poltergeist isn’t bound to the Veil, it’s because—they don’t remember.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Unravel Me

Juliette has escaped from The Reestablishment, who wanted to use her as a weapon. She no longer has to hide her love for Adam. But even though Juliette can now make plans, she can never be free from her lethal touch. And even though she doesn’t want to hurt people, she cannot contain her power, and others continue to suffer at her hand.

Juliette doesn’t decide if she wants to join the resistance until Warner threatens her friends. When her friends are taken captive, Juliette knows she must join the fight. But she is haunted by her past and terrified of her future. In the end, Juliette may have to choose between her heart or saving lives—including Adam’s.

Although Unravel Me has an interesting premise, readers will find it difficult to connect with Juliette because she cannot look past her own needs. Not only is Juliette whiny, but she also constantly berates herself and apologizes for her actions. Instead of focusing on understanding her power, Juliette allows her powers to take control, which leads her to hurt others. Instead of taking action, Juliette repeatedly says she’s sorry, but the apologies lack depth because she does nothing to learn how to control her power and prevent further harm.

The evil leader, Warner, reappears in the second installment of the series. Although Warner is self-centered and craves power, Unravel Me tries to paint him in a more positive light. Soon Juliette is confused by her growing attraction to the man who tried to kill Adam. Even though Juliette is trying to understand Warner, the three-way romance just doesn’t work. Juliette was so devastated when she hurts others, but she is somehow willing to overlook Warner’s killing nature. Instead of feeling sorry for Warner, the reader will be left confused. How can Juliette have intense romantic feelings for a power-hungry man who is willing to kill to get what he wants?

Unfortunately, Unravel Me spends so much time delving into Juliette’s emotional pain and indecision that other characters never have the opportunity to make more than a quick appearance. Instead, readers will have a difficult time caring about what happens. Although the story is unique, there are just too many plot twists that don’t make sense. Readers may want to consider leaving Unravel Me on the shelf. If you’re looking for a fast-paced story with a sprinkle of romance, try A Little in Love by Susan E. Fletcher or the Matched trilogy by Ally Condie.

Sexual Content

  • Adam kisses Juliette. “His left hand is cupping the back of my head, his right tightening around my waist, pressing me hard against him and destroying every rational thought I’ve ever had . . . Somehow I end up on top of him. He reaches up only to pull me down and he’s kissing me, my throat, my cheeks, and my hands are searching his body, exploring the lines, the planes, the muscle . . . This moment. These lips. This strong body pressed against me and these firm hands finding a way to bring me closer and I know I want so much of him. I want all of him. . .” The two only stop kissing when Juliette’s power begins to hurt Adam. The scene is described over five pages.
  • Juliette asks a man if he spied on her when she was changing. He replies, “. . .you are definitely not my type. And more importantly, I’m not some perverted asshole.”
  • Warner shows Juliette a tattoo on his lower back. She thinks, “I want to study the secrets tucked between his elbows and the whispers caught behind his knees. I want to follow the lines of his silhouette with my eyes and the tips of my fingers. I want to trace rivers and valleys along the curved muscles on his body.”
  • Warner asks Juliette to run away with him. Then he grabs her, and she feels “his skin against my skin and I’m holding my breath. . . I don’t say a word as his hands drop to my waist, to the thin material making a poor attempt to cover my body. His fingers graze the soft skin of my lower back, right underneath the hem of my shirt and I’m losing count of the number of times my heart skips a beat.” Then he kisses her and “he traces the shape of my mouth, the curves the seam the dip and my lips part even though I asked them not to. . .” When he kisses her, she thinks, “His lips are softer than anything I’ve ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. . . He kisses me again, this time stronger, desperate . . . His lips touch my bare stomach. . . He’s leaving a trail of fire along my torso, one kiss after another, and I don’t think I can take much more of this. . .” Juliette freaks out and Warner leaves. The scene is described over ten pages.

Violence

  • When Juliette sees Adam being experimented on, she freaks out. She punches “my fist right through the floor. The earth fissures under my fingers and the reverberations surge through my being, ricocheting through my bones until my skull is spinning and my heart is a pendulum slamming into my rib cage.” After her anger is spent, Juliette sees that her “skin is torn and blood is everywhere and I can’t move my fingers. I realize I’m in agony.”
  • After taking hostages, the supreme commander demands to see Juliette. When she arrives, “He’s pinned me against the wall by the throat, his hands carefully sheathed in a pair of leather gloves, already prepared to touch my skin to cut off my oxygen, choke me to death and I’m sure I’m dying, I’m so sure that this is what it feels like to die, to be utterly immobilized, limp from the neck down. . . He lets go of me.”
  • Later, the supreme commander tells his son, Warner, to kill Juliette. When Warner points the gun at his father, his father says, “Shoot me. . . So much talk and never enough follow-through. You embarrass me.” Warner’s father “backhands Warner in the face so hard Warner actually sways for a moment. . .”  Then Juliette grabs Warner’s father’s neck and thinks, “I’ve pinned him to the wall, so overcome by a blind, burning, all-consuming rage that I think my brain has already been caught on fire and dissolved into ash.” Juliette shoots the man in both legs and she is “entertained by the horror in his eyes. The blood ruining the expensive fabric of his clothes. I want to tell him he doesn’t look very attractive with his mouth open like that but then I think he probably wouldn’t care about my opinion anyway.” One of Juliette’s friends pulls her away before she can kill Warner’s father. The scene is described over four pages.
  • In Juliette’s diary, she talks about the day she was taken to the prison. The guards “handcuffed my hands behind my back, the one who strapped me to my seat. They stuck Tasers to my skin over and over for no other reason than to hear me scream but I wouldn’t. . . They slapped me awake even though my eyes were opened when we arrived. Someone unstrapped me without removing my handcuffs and kicked me in both kneecaps before ordering me to rise. . . I really can’t remember the part when they dragged me inside.”
  • In a skirmish between the resistance and the Reestablishment, the Reestablishment’s soldiers “are unloading round after round, shooting at anything that could be a target. . . One man has his hands to the ground, freezing the earth beneath the soldier’s feet, causing them to lose balance. . .” One of the men collects a whirlwind of particles and forms a cyclone. When he lets go, “the soldiers are shouting, screaming, running back and ducking for cover but most are too slow to escape the reach of so much destruction and they’re down, impaled by shards of glass and stone and wood and broken metal but I know this defense won’t last for long.” Juliette uses her powers to cause an earthquake, which allows the resistance fighter to escape. The scene is described over six pages.
  • The Reestablishment gathers a group of citizens together to kill them. In order to try to help the citizens, Juliette and her friends discuss their options. While they talk, they see “27 people lined up, standing side by side in the middle of a big, barren field. Men and women and children of all different ages. . . One of the soldiers fires a shot. The first man crumples to the ground. . .” During the scene, Juliette’s “eyes are locked on a little girl who can’t be much older than James, her eyes so wide, so terrified, the front of her pants already wet from fear and it rips me to pieces. . .” Juliette and her friends shoot at the soldiers and they “see one [bullet] find its mark in a soldier’s neck. . . We’re dodging the bullets aimed in our direction and I see Adam dropping to the ground, I see him shooting with perfect precision and still failing to find a target. . . 3 soldiers go down almost instantly.”
  • During the fight, Juliette sees “dead dead dead is everywhere. So many bodies mixed and meshed into the earth that I have no idea if they’re ours or theirs. . . I’m tackled from behind. Someone pins me down and my face is buried in the ground and I’m kicking, trying to scream but I feel the gun wrenched out of my grip. I feel an elbow in my spine. . .” A soldier points a gun at Juliette, and “I’m only clawing at his covered arm, at the muscle he’s bound around my neck and he shakes me, shouts at me to stop squirming and pulls me tighter to cut off my air supply and my fingers are clenched around his forearm, trying to fight the viselike grip he has around me and I can’t breathe and I’m panicked. . . I’ve crushed all the bones in his arm. . .” Someone hits Juliette on the head, making her “almost entirely unconscious.” The scene is described over 10 pages.
  • Warner’s father shoots Juliette in the chest. She thinks, “My heart has exploded. I’m thrown backward, tripping over my own feet until I hit the floor, my head slamming into the carpeted ground, my arms doing little to break my fall. It’s pain never thought I could feel, never would have even imagined.” Juliette doesn’t die from the wound.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Adam talks about his father, who would only come around “to get drunk and beat the crap out of someone.” After Adam’s mother died, his father would “come by just to get piss-drunk. He used to force me to stand in front of him so he could throw his empty bottles at me.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Towards the end of the book, the profanity ramps up and appears on almost every page. Profanity includes ass, asshole, bullshit, bastards, crap, damn, dumbass, goddamn, hell, holy shit, jackass, and shit.
  • “Oh God,” “God,” and “Jesus” are used as exclamations often.
  • Juliette remembers the world before the Reestablishment took over. She “remembers the pissed-off skies and the sequence of sunsets collapsing beneath the moon.”
  • When Adam tries to tell Juliette how he feels, he ends up saying, “Jesus. What the hell am I saying. Shit. Shit. I’m sorry—forget that – forget I said anything. . .”
  • One of Juliette’s friends yells at her. “And I should kick my own ass for it, but I feel sorry for you. So I tell him I’ll help. I rearrange my entire goddamn schedule just to help you deal with your issues.”
  • One of Juliette’s friends says, “Jesus. How early is it? I would kick a soldier in the crotch for a cup of coffee right now.”
  • When someone calls a man a “fetus,” the man gets angry and says, “I am mad. I’m pissed off. And I’m cranky as hell because I’m tired. And hungry. And I need more coffee.”
  • Someone says Adam’s father was being a “dick.”

Supernatural

  • Many characters have special powers. Juliette is trying to learn how to harness her energy. “Our gifts are different forms of Energy. Matter is never created or destroyed. . . as our world changed, so did the Energy within it. Our abilities are taken from the universe, from other matter, from other Energies.”
  • When Juliette touches someone, she drains the life out of them.
  • The first book in the series explains how Juliette goes to a compound where she meets a man who can move things with his mind. There is also a man who tells her, “Sometimes I electrocute people by accident” and another who is really flexible. He “loops one arm around his waist. Twice.”
  • At the compound, two women are healers—one heals the physical body and the other heals emotional wounds. The healers “can set broken bones and repair bullet wounds and revive collapsed lungs and mend even the worst kinds of cuts.”
  • Another person can “blend into the background of any space. Shift myself to match my surroundings.”
  • Adam discovers that he can project his ability and can disable others’ abilities.
  • Adam’s brother can heal quickly.
  • Warner can sense other people’s emotions, which allows him to know when someone is lying. He can also be a conduit to transfer other people’s energy.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Shatter Me

Juliette has always been an outcast. She doesn’t understand why she is different; she just knows her touch is fatal. After being locked in solitary confinement for 264 days, Juliette is shocked when she gets a new cellmate—a boy. Adam wants to be Juliette’s friend, but she doesn’t know if she can trust him. Then, the Reestablishment takes both her and Adam to a new facility.

The Reestablishment has plans for Juliette. Plans to use her as a weapon. Juliette doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Even though Juliette is still a prisoner, she is discovering the strength to fight back. She wants to have a future. With Adam by her side, Juliette plans her escape. When the time is right, will Juliette be able to escape the Reestablishment? Will Adam lead her to a better life, or does he have plans to betray her?

old from Juliette’s point of view, the story focuses on her thoughts and feelings. However, her thought process is often hard to understand as her thoughts are often described using figurative language. There is also no clear transition between her thoughts and what is actually happening in the story, meaning readers may have to go back and reread some scenes to make sure they understand the text.

The story has an interesting premise, but readers will have a difficult time suspending their disbelief. The story never explains why Juliette’s touch is lethal. Since Juliette’s touch is only lethal when her skin touches someone else’s skin, it is hard to imagine that no one has given Juliette a pair of gloves. Instead of helping Juliet protect others, her parents moved around after each disaster. When Juliette accidentally causes the death of a little boy, she is sent to prison and placed in an isolation cell. Once she is placed in the care of the Reestablishment, her main captor always wears gloves to protect himself. If her captor came up with the simple solution of gloves, why didn’t anyone else?

Juliette soon discovers that both Adam and her captor are immune to her touch. Since Juliette revels in the ability to simply touch another person, Juliette and Adam share steamy kisses between the high-action scenes. Although the plot is hard to believe, fans of dystopian stories will enjoy the unique characters as well as the battle of good versus evil. Full of suspense and surprises, Shatter Me is an action-packed story with plenty of steamy scenes. Readers will want to jump into the next book, Ignite Me, to see if Juliette finds freedom or just a different type of prison.

Sexual Content

  • When Adam holds Juliette, she thinks, “I wish I knew the taste of his lips.”
  • While Adam and Juliette are alone, he grabs her and puts her against the wall. Juliette is “trembling everywhere and he’s so gentle, so careful, touching me like I’m made of porcelain and I want to shatter. He’s running his hands down my body running his eyes across my face running laps with his heart and I’m running marathons with my mind. Everything is on fire. . . suddenly his lips are on my neck and I’m gasping and dying and clutching at his arms and he’s touching me touching me touching me and I’m thunder and lightning. . . ” The scene is described over two pages.
  • Adam tells Juliette that he loves her. Then, “his nose is touching my nose, his lips one breath away, his eyes devouring me already and I’m a puddle with no arms and no legs. . . His hands at my waist, gripping my hips, his legs flush against my own, his chest overpowering me with strength, his frame built by bricks of desire. . . He’s everywhere up my back and over my arms and suddenly he’s kissing me harder, deeper, with a fervent urgency that I’ve never known before.”
  • As Adam and Juliette kiss, she slips “my hands under his shirt and he chokes on a moan that turns into a kiss that needs me and wants me and has to have me so desperately it’s like the most acute form of torture. His weight is pressed into mine, on top of mine, infinite points of feeling . . . his lips are falling down my shirt and I don’t understand why I need to wear clothes anymore. . .” Their embrace is interrupted.
  • When Adam kisses Juliette, she gasps “and he’s kissing me, deep and powerful and unrestrained. His arms around my back, dipping my body until I’m practically horizontal. . .”
  • After Adam and Juliette escape, they get to a safe place and Juliette asks Adam to touch her. Then, “my face is in his hands and my lips are at his lips and he’s kissing me. . . His body is almost on top of mine, one hand in my hair, the other feeling its way down my silhouette, slipping behind my knee to pull me closer, higher, tighter. . . He takes my hands and press them against his chest, guiding my fingers as they trail down the length of his torso before his lips meet mine again and again. . . His hands slip under my shirt, skirting my sides, touching me like he’s never dared to before, and my top is nearly over my head when a door squeaks open. We both freeze.” The scene is described over two pages.
  • One of Adam’s friends tries to get him to move to a safer location. When Adam doesn’t hurry, the man shouts, “I mean, shit, man, I don’t think there’s ever a bad time to get naked, but now is probably not the best time for a nooner. So unless you want to get killed, I suggest you get your ass out here.”
  • When soldiers capture Juliette, a man grabs her, and “his lips touch my skin and I actually whimper.” The man tells her, “God I’d love to just take a bite out of you.” Juliette pretends she likes the man’s touch so she can get his gun. The man’s “hands are exploring my body, slipping down my back to feel the form of my figure and it’s all I can do to keep from doing something reckless. . . And he kisses me. Hungrily. Desperately. Eager to break me open and taste me. . . I pull him closer, grab a fistful of his jacket and kiss him as hard as I can, my fingers already attempting to release the first of his buttons. Warner grips my hips and allows his hands to conquer my body.” When Juliette has the opportunity, she shoots him. The scene is described over three pages.
  • When Adam is beaten, Juliette tells him to get better because “I’m going to memorize every inch of your body with my lips.”
  • When Adam heals from his injuries, he wants to be alone with Juliette. When everyone leaves, Adam leans “in and I’m leaning in until I’m practically on top of him and he’s slipping me into his arms and kissing me with a new kind of desperation . . . His hands are threaded in my hair, his lips so soft and urgent against mine. . .” Adam “kisses my bottom lip. Bites it for just a second.” The scene is described over a page.

Violence

  • Juliette thinks back to when the Reestablishment was taking over the country. She remembers “the bad memories. . . Protests. Rallies. Screams for survival. I see women and children starving to death, homes destroyed and buried in rubble, the countryside a burnt landscape, its only fruit the rotting flesh of casualties. I see dead dead dead red and burgundy and maroon and the richest shade of your mother’s favorite lipstick all smeared into the earth.”
  • While in her cell room, guards come in and begin shouting. While Juliette stands there doing nothing, a guard “slams the butt of his gun into my back and my knees crack as they hit the floor. I finally taste oxygen and a side of blood. . . A steel-toed boot kicks me in the ribs, fast, hard, hollow.” The guards shove a gun into Juliette’s cellmate’s face. The guards make the two walk to a new destination. During the trip, Juliette thinks, “I don’t know how long I’ve been walking before another blow to my back cripples me.” When Juliette falls down, “there’s another heavy boot pressed into my back and I can’t lift my head to distinguish who’s speaking to me.”
  • A soldier is accused of “fraternizing with civilians believed to be rebel party members. He has stolen food and supplies from storage units. . .” When the soldier doesn’t deny the accusations, a man “takes a short breath. Licks his lips. And shoots him in the forehead.” The man’s “limbs are bent at odd angles on the cold, concrete floor. Blood is pooling around him and still no one moves.”
  • When Adam was younger, his drunk father took him to school. Juliette watched “a father slap his 8-year-old son in the face. I watched Adam fall to the floor and I stood there motionless as he was kicked repeatedly in the ribs.” While hitting him, Adam’s father screamed, “It’s your fault, you worthless piece of shit.”
  • In order to understand Juliette’s power, a man puts a toddler in a room that has spikes that come through the floor. In order to save the boy, Juliette is forced to touch him. When she does, “his screams pierce through me like I’m being shot to death, one bullet for every second. He’s clawing at my arms, my chest, kicking my body as hard as he can, crying out in agony until the pain paralyzes him.” After the test, Juliette gets angry. “I catapult through the concrete walls. I crush the glass with 10 fingers.” The test is described over four pages.
  • In order to escape, Adam slams “the butt of his gun into Warner’s head. Warner’s gun misfires and Adam catches his arm and twists his wrist until his grip on the weapon wavers. I grab the gun from Warner’s limp hand and slam the butt of it into his face. . .” During the fight, “Adam slams his knee into Warner’s spine. Warner falls to the floor with a muffled crack and a sharp intake of breath.” After Warner is tied up, Juliette and Adam are able to escape.
  • A man tells Adam, “No one should have to wake up in the morning and find dead bodies in their living room, but shit happens. We deal with it, and we find a way to survive.” As the man continues to talk, Adam gets angry and presses “a gun to his forehead.”
  • As Adam, Juliette, and others flee from the Reestablishment, “there are children everywhere, bright colors of small bodies suddenly screaming at our approaches. . . Adam pushes me to the ground just as a bullet flies past my head. He shoots down another door toward another exit, and we run through the ruins towards another exit, trapped in the maze of what used to be a clothing store. Gunshots and footsteps are close behind. . . Adam is breathing hard. He grips the gun in his hand. Pops his head out for a split second and fires. Someone falls to the floor, screaming.” Several people are killed and Adam is captured.
  • Juliette follows a trail of blood and finds Adam, who is “hanging from bound wrists, shirtless, bloodied, and bruised everywhere. His head is bent, his neck limp, his left leg drenched in blood despite the tourniquet wrapped around his thigh. . . His wrists are rubbed raw, bleeding, his body pounded into one piece of pain, his leg bloodied through with a bullet.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • In the past, Adam’s father drove drunk.
  • A man gives Adam’s ten-year-old brother a sleeping pill. The man doesn’t want the boy to see Adam being chased by the Reestablishment.
  • When Juliette escapes, someone gives her a sedative to help her get over her shock. Later, Adam is also given a sedative to help him recover.

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Towards the end of the book, the profanity ramps up and appears on almost every page. Profanity includes ass, asshole, bullshit, bastards, crap, damn, goddamn, hell, holy shit, and shit.
  • “Oh God,” “God,” and, “Jesus” are used as exclamations often.
  • After Adam treats Juliette badly, he says, “I’m sorry I’m such an asshole.” He also tells her, “I was a jerk yesterday. I treated you like crap and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
  • Someone calls Adam a “sick bastard.”
  • When a man sees Adam and Juliette kissing, he says, “Son of a motherless goat—“
  • One of Adam’s friends refers to Juliette as a “psycho chick.”
  • A man slept in a shed; he described that it “was weird. Crazy shit growing in the place. I almost ate something I thought was fruit before I realized it smelled like ass.”

Supernatural

  • When Juliet touches someone, she drains the life out of them.9 When a guard touches her, “I can hear his anguish, I can feel the power pouring out of his body, I can hear his heart beating in my ears and my head is spinning with the rush of adrenaline fortifying my being. . . My skin is pulsing with someone else’s life and I don’t hate it.” Juliette breaks the connection before the guard is seriously injured.
  • In the past, Juliette tried to help a little boy, but she “killed a little boy in a grocery store simply by helping him to his feet.”
  • Somehow Juliette was able to punch through a steel door. Her “fist flies through 12 inches of steel like it’s made of butter.”
  • Juliette goes to a compound where she meets a man who can move things with his mind. There is also a man who tells her, “Sometimes I electrocute people by accident” and another who is really flexible. He “loops one arm around his waist. Twice.”
  • At the compound, two women are healers—one heals the physical body and the other heals emotional wounds. Yet another person can “blend into the background of any space. Shift myself to match my surroundings.”

Spiritual Content

  • When in a difficult situation, Juliette “prays to God I’m making the right decision.”

Major Monster Mess

Welcome to Kersville, a town with a spooky history and a collection of ghosts and spirits who are major mischief-makers. Most kids spend their days without ever seeing or dealing with a ghost, but some kids get stuck with a haunt. When that happens, they call Desmond Cole Ghost Patrol. There’s no job too spooky, icky, or risky for Desmond.

Andres Miedoso is not like that at all. He is Desmond’s best friend and ghost patrol partner. Desmond Cole loves the cafeteria food, but Andres always brings his lunch. Unlike most schools, the lunch at Kersville Elementary is great. Desmond always has a plate heaping with food. When a cafeteria worker smells Andres’ lunch, strange things begin happening. Andres soon wonders if a monster is after his lunch.

In the sixth installment of the Desmond Cole Series, Andres takes center stage as he tries to find out why he comes home smelling like a monster. Another conflict is introduced when a shadow keeps trying to take Andres’s lunch, which is made up of traditional Hispanic foods. Major Monster Mess has a lot of aspects that will have younger readers turning the pages. Besides featuring a ghost that lives in Andres’s basement, there is also the threat of monsters, as well as the mystery of the shadow. As usual, Desmond and Andres discover that there is little to fear when it comes to monsters. Even though they may have scary appearances, they have good intentions—to cook the students of Kersville a delicious lunch.

The Major Monster Mess has a unique and humorous plot that has mystery and a satisfying, unexpected conclusion. The story contains just enough gross factor and scary monsters to keep readers turning the pages. Even though The Monster Mess is the third book in the Desmond Cole series, readers do not have to read the previous book. The story is told in ten short chapters with easy-to-read vocabulary; perfect for emerging readers. A black-and-white illustration appears on almost every page. The often humorous illustrations use exaggerated facial expressions so readers can tell what the characters are feeling. Readers will laugh as Desmond and Andres find themselves in unexpected situations. Readers who enjoy The Scary Library Shusher should also try the Notebook of Doom series by Troy Cummings.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • On the way to school, a black shadow tries to take Andres’ lunch. “A black shadow streaked across the ground and flew right behind me! Then something grabbed my backpack and wouldn’t let go! The shadow was trying to pull me off my bike.” Andres pedals into a brier bush and the shadow “yowled and let go.”
  • While in the cafeteria, a black shadow tries to take Andres lunch. “. . . There was no way I was going to let some monster tear it away from me. So I fought back. The next thing I knew, we were in a tug-of-war. . .Before I knew it, he had pulled me into the air. We zoomed around the lunchroom while the monsters kept eating their food, splattering glop all over the place.” Desmond tries to help Andres and they both end up in a pile of goop. “It was filled with apple cores, pencil shavings, and toenail clippings.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Zax is a ghost that lives in Andres’s basement.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Heartwood Box

Araceli’s parents wanted her to have a normal, American senior year, so they sent her to stay with her Great-Aunt Ottillie. Araceli is supposed to be focusing on school and getting ready for college, but she thinks that her aunt’s old Victorian home may be haunted. Araceli can feel someone watching her, and it doesn’t help that her great-aunt still leaves food out for her husband that has been missing for twenty years.

Araceli’s great-aunt isn’t the only creepy thing in town. Local businesses are plastered with missing posters. The townspeople are watchful and suspicious of each other. There are unexplained lights in the woods and a mysterious lab just beyond the city walls that no one talks about. When Araceli begins getting letters from the past, she thinks someone is playing a nasty joke on her.

When Araceli’s friend disappears, she is determined to find out what is going on. In order to solve the mystery, she must investigate the other disappearances as well as the secretive lab. But someone is willing to go to great lengths to keep their secrets hidden. Can Araceli uncover the conspiracy or will someone make her disappear?

The Heartwood Box is an immensely enjoyable, complicated story that will have readers guessing until the very end. Told from Araceli’s point of view, the creepy town comes alive. Although Araceli isn’t the most relatable character, her story is compelling. The supporting characters are not well-developed but they help move the plot along at a fast pace. For those who love character-driven stories, The Heartwood Box might disappoint.

This story is a mix of science-fiction, mystery, and historical romance. The multiple plots may leave readers confused unless they pay close attention. Not only is Araceli falling in love with a World War I soldier, but she is also trying to fit in at a new school and solve the mystery of the town’s disappearing people. The end of the story ties all of the threads together in a satisfying, if somewhat implausible, conclusion.

Aguirre also throws in the theme of colorism. Several times in the story, Araceli talks about colorism and gives examples of how dark skin people are treated differently than whites. At one point she thinks, “I wish America cared the same about Black and Brown girls, but there’s a lot to do yet.” Even though Araceli is bi-racial, this theme is not well fleshed out.

Readers looking for a unique time travel mystery will enjoy The Heartwood Box, which has several surprising twists at the end. Some of the vocabulary is difficult, but the majority of the story is written in easy to understand language. Although the ending is rushed, the book will captivate readers who enjoyed the Ruby Red series by Kerstin Gier or Passenger by Alexandra Bracken.

Sexual Content

  • When Araceli has a friend over to the house, her aunt says, “You can watch TV in the parlor if you want. I do trust both of you, but it would be disrespectful for you to go upstairs.” Araceli thinks to herself, “Oh my God, if I wanted to hook up with Logan, I’d go across the street. He already said his parents aren’t home.”
  • In a dream, Araceli is able to see soldiers who are on a ship. She hears, “a slick skin-on-skin sound that I identify as a soldier jerking off, trying to be stealthy about it.”
  • While talking to a boy, Araceli thinks, “He’s thirsty for me. I’ve seen the look enough to recognize it, but I pretend not to know. . .”
  • When Araceli is sitting in a car with a boy, her aunt “saves me by flipping the porch light on and peeking out the front door, likely to make sure we’re not getting hot and heavy in her Plymouth.”
  • While in a dream, Araceli meets a soldier and, “I can touch him in this dream, so I do. There’s no reason to hold back. When he drops his weapon and opens his arms, I slide into them like I belong there. . . I stretch up on tiptoe and cup his face in my hands; I feel the heat of his skin, the scruff on his chin and jaw. Then I press my mouth to his, light and soft. He drags me closer and kisses me like our lives depend on it, all heat and desperation. . . We kiss and cling until I can barely breathe.”
  • When Araceli’s aunt and uncle see her sitting in a car with an older man, her uncle asks, “Is there something you need to tell us? We won’t judge you. Grown men who entice young girls should be ashamed.” Araceli tells them that the man was a family friend.

Violence

  • The town sheriff physically abuses his son. The abuse is not described, but Araceli sees the bruises. When the boy gets to school, she “can see his lip is busted, and his face is swollen on one side. At a minimum, someone slapped the shit out of him, and it looks more like he took a few hits to the face.”
  • In a letter, a soldier writes about his experiences. “France has become hell on earth, no way around it. Great tunnels in the dirt, piled high with bodies and you can’t tell a Jerry from a Brit from a Sammy. . . Death makes every soldier the same. Nobody is coming for those men, not to give them services or say a few words or even to bury them. The birds pluck out their eyes. . .” The soldier also writes, “I killed my first Jerry and threw up afterwards. . . My friend John took one in the gut, bad way to go. Took him hours to go west, and we were all freezing next to his body in a trench during that first long hour of hate.”
  • Araceli thinks back to the past. “The kids are protesting, shouting, waving signs. A shot rings out. The student leader goes down, bleeding from his head, and it’s all mayhem, all running and screaming.”
  • Someone tells the county sheriff to kill someone. The sheriff says, “You’re trying to give me a kill order? I can’t believe you think you bought me for fifty thousand.”
  • Araceli and her friends are trying to destroy mechanisms that create the ghost light. A man sees them and Araceli “rush[es] toward him, and everything else is instinct. With the hammer, I knock whatever he has out of his hand, and then I swing again, as hard as I can, right upside his head. His body goes flying, tumbling down the hill and into the water with an ominous splash.” The man dies.
  • Araceli and her friends are chased by guards who shoot at them. Araceli’s “heart thunders in my ears as more bullets spray the area. I get stung on a ricochet and a sharp pain slices across my calf. Shit, it hurts. . .” One of her friends is shot. “His voice comes out liquid with blood and breathy from his struggle for air. . . Jackson gives me a sad smile, his teeth stained with blood. . . He goes limp in my arms. . . Jackson’s blood is all over the soil and the stones, staining my hands and the suit he made to protect us.” The scene takes place over seven pages.
  • After Araceli’s friend dies, she jumps on an ATV and tries to escape. The guards, “snap shots at me as they can, but it’s not as easy from the back of an ATV, firing at a moving vehicle.” She crashes, and a man “twists my arms behind me and binds my wrists with what feels like a zip tie, then drags me out of sight. . .I taste blood from where my lips split against my teeth.” The man gags her and then puts her in a cell. The scene takes place over 4 pages.
  • Over a radio, Araceli hears “the sound of a Taser discharging and the impact of a fist hitting flesh.”
  • As Araceli and Dr. Perry try to get to the lab’s control room, Dr. Perry “slams into three guards coming around the corner. His weapon flies out of his hand. . .” Araceli shoots a guard in the belly and “the guard screams and topples over. . .” Dr. Perry shoots a guard. Later Dr. Perry shoots two more guards “neatly, two chest shots, two clean kills.” Eventually, someone shoots Dr. Perry. “Slugs slam into the blocks, shaking the cement. . . He’s down, bleeding from several wounds. . . He manages to shoot three of the four, and I fire on the last one while he’s reloading. . .” Dr. Perry dies. The scene takes place over four pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • As Araceli goes through town, she thinks about her past homes. “I can’t remember ever living in a freestanding house. There will be no rooftop garden parties here, no barbeques that draw out the neighbors so that we grill whatever’s on hand, and I take beer from the cooler without anyone asking how old I am.”
  • While in the past, Araceli goes to a Halloween party and gets drunk.
  • Araceli goes into a pizza place where some adults are drinking beer.
  • A girl’s mother is put on depression medication after her son disappears.
  • In a letter, a soldier says that while passing through England, they stopped at a town and some men got “puking drunk.”
  • When a boy is teaching Araceli to drive, he tells her, “You’re going really slow. If you’re not careful, you’ll get pulled over. Only people who are slightly high drive this much below the limit.”
  • Araceli is given a document that has information about the Heartwood box. A researcher had an “unfortunate addiction to hallucinogenic drugs.”
  • Araceli sends a note to the past, but wonders if the person receiving it, “was stoned when he got my note, laughed and rolled a joint with it.”
  • A boy’s grandfather only talked about a girl he once loved when he “had a little to drink.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, asshole, bitching, crap, damn, dammit, fricking hell, holy shit, piss, pissed, shit.
  • Araceli meets a boy and thinks that he is “kind of a dick.”
  • When Logan’s father gets home, he yells at his wife and asks, “Where the hell is he? I told him to come straight home from school and look after the fucking yard.”
  • OMG is used twice. Oh my god is used six times. Oh god and Oh Lord are both used once.
  • When her aunt gives her snacks after school, Araceli thinks, “I swear to God, I’m starting to like pretending I’m five. . .”
  • Araceli describes her mood as, “grumpy as hell.”
  • Araceli thinks, “I’ve experienced some shit in my life, but I can’t say I ever lived in a haunted house. Until now.” Later she thinks, “This house is so damn haunted.”
  • A boy is wearing a shirt that says, “Get in line B*tches.”

Supernatural

  • While in her aunt’s house and at school, Araceli feels a chill. She also feels as if someone is watching her.
  • Araceli has vivid dreams where she goes into the past and can interact with a World War I soldier. When she is dreaming, no other people can see or hear her besides the soldier. However, after one dream a picture of World War I changes. When she dreams, she can find the soldier because “there was a tug. . . I feel that same pull now, delicate and tenuous. . .”
  • Araceli goes into the attic, and “before I get to the pull cord, it’s tugged by an invisible hand until the distinctive click, and the light flares on.”
  • Araceli finds a treasure box that allows her to communicate with a World War I soldier. They write letters back and forth. Araceli also puts small objects like mint and antibiotic ointment into the box.
  • The town has “ghost lights” that make people slip into another time.
  • When people disappear, their loved ones leave out food for them, which also disappears.

Spiritual Content

  • When Araceli wakes up after being asleep for days, her aunt says, “Thank God.”
  • Araceli thinks about her parents who “aren’t religious. My mom’s agnostic and my dad is a lapsed Catholic, so I was baptized and that’s about it. . . We go to mass once a year at Christmas, and it’s a somber occasion in most of the countries I’ve lived in.”
  • Araceli goes to church with a friend, but the service is not described. While there, a woman says, “Everyone is welcome in God’s house.”

The Scary Library Shusher

Welcome to Kersville, a town with a spooky history and a collection of ghosts and spirits who are major mischief-makers. Most kids spend their days without ever seeing or dealing with a ghost, but some kids get stuck with a haunt. When that happens, they call Desmond Cole Ghost Patrol. There’s no job too spooky, icky, or risky for Desmond.

Andres Miedoso is not like that at all. He’s Desmond’s best friend and ghost patrol partner. When our teacher gives us a research project, we’re excited to research the library. There should be nothing scary about the library, right? But once we begin our research, there’s a ghostly mystery woman who is causing all sorts of mischief. Can Desmond and Andres figure out what the ghostly woman is up to?

Desmond Cole and Andres are fun characters who are complete opposites. Desmond wants to chase after the zombie, while Andes wants to run in the other direction. Although the library isn’t the most exciting scene for a story, the flying books and spooky woman will demand the reader’s attention. Desmond and Andres learn that the book-loving ghost has a unique problem; one that the two kids help solve. The story has a humorous, unexpected conclusion that will leave readers smiling.

Although The Scary Library Shusher has a common plotline, it still has enough action, humor, and a non-scary ghost to keep readers interested until the very end. The story is told in ten short chapters with easy-to-read vocabulary which is perfect for emerging readers. A black-and-white illustration appears on almost every page. The often humorous illustrations use exaggerated facial expressions so readers can tell what the characters are feeling. Readers will laugh as Desmond and Andres find themselves in unexpected situations. Night of the Zombie Zookeeper is the fifth installment in the Desmond Cole series, however, none of the books need to be read in order. Readers who enjoy The Scary Library Shusher should also try the Notebook of Doom series by Troy Cummings.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Books float off a shelf “all by themselves. Then they started flapping their covers like wings until, suddenly, the flying books swooped down toward Desmond. My best friend was under attack!”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Desmond and Andes hear a strange shhhhhh sound even though no one is there.
  • Computers start turning on all by themselves and “in the darkness, we could hear typing, and whoever was typing was doing it really fast. . . Plus, they were typing the same thing on every single computer. At the same time! It was just one very long word: Shhhhhh.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Anya’s Ghost

Anya just wants to fit in with the other kids. But, she knows that she’s not like them. She’s embarrassed of her Russian heritage, self-conscious about her body, and she only has one friend at school. After a particularly bad day at school, Anya distractedly walks home and falls into a well.

Anya didn’t expect to find a new friend at the bottom of the well, especially not one that has been dead for a century. Anya thinks the ghost is just what she needs to make her life better. But Anya’s new BFF isn’t telling the truth about how she ended up dead in a well. Can Anya trust her ghostly BFF or will Anya’s new friend turn into her worst nightmare?

Brosgal’s fantastic artwork brings Anya’s terrible teenage years to life. The illustrations capture Anya’s conflicting emotions and her angst as she navigates high school. After Anya’s family immigrated to America, Anya was bullied which caused her to turn away from her heritage. In order to fit in, Anya has learned to talk without an accent, as well as look like all of her classmates. However, Anya still struggles with making friends, she has insecurities about her body, and she is angry about life in general. Anya’s character is incredibly real—she is snarky, sarcastic; she sulks and sneers her way through life. Although Anya acts like many teens, she is not a role model. She’s rude to her family, unmotivated to do well in school, and sneaks out of class to smoke cigarettes. Despite Anya’s negative attitude, readers can still learn powerful lessons from the less-than-perfect teen.

Anya is self-centered and only thinks about herself. At first, when Anya meets her ghost, she just wants the ghost to disappear from her life. But when the ghost helps her cheat on a test, Anya thinks having a ghost around might not be so bad. Anya is so self-centered that she doesn’t even ask the ghost her name until the ghost becomes helpful. Anya also treats a Russian boy terribly. Anya doesn’t want to associate with the Russian boy at her school because he’s “fresh off the boat.”

The story also portrays teachers in a negative way. The teacher doesn’t notice when Anya sneaks out a classroom window. Another student complains about the P.E. teacher who makes them complete the physical fitness test because “he just likes watching us run around in these stupid skirts.” Then when Anya trips in class and the other girls jump over her, the teacher says, “Ladies! If we are all done losing ourselves in Anya’s derriere, we have a test to finish.”

Despite the negative aspects of the books, the story will make readers reconsider how they treat others. The story highlights the courage it takes for teens to embrace their differences instead of trying to blend in with the crowd. Anya’s Ghost uses real-life situations and humor to show how it feels to be an outsider. Anya wishes that she was skinnier, had more friends, and had a different last name. But thanks to Anya’s spooky, demanding ghost, Anya learns to appreciate her life, even if that means embracing her Russian heritage. Anya’s Ghost is comical, compassionate, creepy, and will engage even the most reluctant readers.

Sexual Content

  • Anya has a crush on Sean. She sees Sean in front of the school, kissing a girl.
  • When someone teases Anya, her friend tells the girl, “Hey, Katy, I heard about your nice moves in the boys’ bathroom today.”
  • Anya tells her friend that Sean talked to her. Anya’s friend replies, “Are you sure he wasn’t talking to your boobs?”
  • Anya fantasizes about kissing Sean. In the fantasy, the two dance, and then Sean says, “Oh Anya, let’s have an intense spiritual relationship for no believable reason.” To which Anya replies, “Oh, Sean, Take me away!”
  • To go to a party, Anya dresses in a short skirt and a low-cut shirt. When she looks at herself, she says, “this feels kind of slutty.” When Anya gets to the party, a boy tells her, “Your boobs look spectacular in that shirt.”
  • At a party, Anya finds Sean’s girlfriend outside a door. Anya can hear a girl giggling inside the room. Sean comes out of the room and briefly flirts with Anya. Then Sean tells his girlfriend, “Maybe a bit more of a signal next time, Liz?” Sean’s girlfriend reveals that the girl in the room is another boy’s girlfriend.
  • Anya decides she doesn’t want anything to do with Sean because “he’s upstairs making out with Amber.”

Violence

  • The ghost, Emily, tells Anya that she fell into a well and died, but “it didn’t hurt. But I couldn’t move or talk. I got very thirsty and then I died.
  • The ghost tells a story about how her parents were “very religious” and would offer to let passing people sleep in the barn. One man who “seemed like a good Christian” killed her parents. When Emily “woke up from a dream and came downstairs, he was standing over my parents’ bodies, ready to go upstairs for me.” Emily ran and fell down a well, where she died.
  • When Emily was alive, she had a crush on a man. When she sees the man with another woman, Emily killed them both. Emily says, “He said I was ugly! He broke my heart!”
  • The ghost tries to hurt Emily’s mother by turning on the stove burner and poisoning the food.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Anya and her friend skip class so they can smoke cigarettes.
  • During a conversation, Sean says that his friend gets “kind of freaky when he’s drunk.”
  • Anya goes to a party, where it’s implied that teens are drinking.

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: ass, badass, crap, goddamn, and whore.
  • Anya’s friend tells her, “I heard about you down that freakin’ well for two days! That’s so badass.”
  • God, my God, and Oh my God are used as an exclamation frequently. When the ghost sneaks up on Anya, Anya says, “Jesus, Emily! You scared me to death!”
  • A girl tells Anya’s friend, “Screw you.”
  • When a girl teases Anya, her friend tells her, “forget about that whore, Anya.”
  • A girl says her brother said Sean was a dirtbag. The same girl says that Sean is a manwhore.
  • Anya says that Emily is “just a pissy cloud.”

Supernatural

  • Anya falls into a well and meets a ghost, who “can’t go very far from my bones.”

Spiritual Content

  • Anya falls into a well. When she finds food in her backpack, she says “Oh, Thank God.” Later, when someone finds her in the well, she again says, “Oh, Thank God.”
  • There is a picture of Jesus on the wall in Anya’s house. When Anya cusses, her mom tells Anya not to “swear in front of Jesus.”
  • Anya refuses to go to church with her family. When her mom tells Anya people are worried about her, Anya asks, “Because I’m sick or because I’m going to hell?” Later Anya tells the ghost that she doesn’t want to go to church because “orthodox church is weird.”

Night of the Zombie Zookeeper

Welcome to Kersville, a town with a spooky history and a collection of ghosts and spirits who are major mischief-makers. Most kids spend their days without ever seeing or dealing with a ghost, but some kids get stuck with a haunt. When that happens, they call Desmond Cole Ghost Patrol. There’s no job too spooky, icky, or risky for Desmond.

Andres Miedoso is not like that at all. He’s Desmond’s best friend and ghost patrol partner. Desmond Cole and he are excited to go on a field trip to the zoo. They have planned out each and every exhibit they want to go to. They want to make sure they see all the animals. When the field trip day comes, they head to the back of the zoo. But when they see a zombie feeding the giraffes, their plan goes out the window. Instead of enjoying the animals, they’re chasing a zombie.

When it comes to Desmond Cole and Andres, they are opposites. Desmond wants to chase after the zombie, while Andres wants to run in the other direction. Readers will love the two boys who chase the zombie around the zoo. The story has suspense, humor, and a little bit of gross factor—the zombie accidentally dumps goo on Andres. Even though the story features a zombie, it is not scary. Instead, Desmond and Andres discover that zombies make great zookeepers. After all, zombies “don’t mind cleaning up the really stinky number twos! Also, zombies are never grossed out by the slimy, icky food they have to feed the animals.”

Night of the Zombie Zookeeper is the fourth installment in the Desmond Cole series, however, none of the books need to be read in order. The story is told in nine short chapters with easy-to-read vocabulary which is perfect for emerging readers. A black-and-white illustration appears on almost every page. The often humorous illustrations use exaggerated facial expressions so readers can tell what the characters are feeling. Readers will laugh as Desmond and Andres find themselves in unexpected situations. Readers who enjoy Night of the Zombie Zookeeper should also try the Notebook of Doom series by Troy Cummings.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • A zombie goes underneath water without scuba gear.

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Lonely Dead

For years, doctors have told Adele that she has schizophrenia, that the ghosts she sees are just a figment of her imagination. Adele is tired of living in a drug-induced fog and decides to ditch the drugs. But now the ghosts are back. When Adele finds her ex-best friend’s body and her ghost, she realizes the dead aren’t really dead and only she can talk to them.

When Tori’s body is found in a shallow grave, the police focus their investigation on Adele. As the prime suspect in the murder, Adele decides to find the killer, which means working with Tori’s ghost. When Tori begins questioning others, danger comes from all directions. Will she be able to find the murderer or will the murderer silence Adele forever?

The Lonely Dead has an interesting premise but lacks suspense or any sense of urgency. Adele lacks personality and common sense. In her search to find the killer, the clues come too easily and she makes unwise choices. It is difficult to believe that she would trust a murder suspect just because the suspect is good-looking. Even though Tori’s death should add a tragic tone to the story, it is hard to feel sorry for the self-centered girl who was mean to everyone and lacked self-control.

The story teaches about the dangers of alcohol and the importance of being aware of one’s surroundings. However, the author takes the idea of a blackout too far. Tori does not know who killed her because she blacked out, and Adele wonders if she blacked out and then killed Tori. Not only is this unrealistic, but Adele’s confusion borders on the absurd.

Adele is surrounded by turmoil; both her mother and grandmother died due to mental disorders, her harsh grandfather gives her little support, and she is friendless. The story focuses too much on Adele’s inner monologue as well as her past struggles. Instead of being interesting, the family’s background takes away from the murder mystery and adds little to the story. To make matters worse, the police, the student teacher, and the psychologist are all portrayed in a negative light.

One good point of the story is the focus on Tori’s bad behavior. Adele points out that Tori hurt people when she ignored them. Adele said, “You might not ever have laid a hand on them, but it still hurts when someone acts like you’re not even there.” You may want to avoid The Lonely Dead since the murder mystery lacks interesting characters, surprises, or a sense of urgency.

Sexual Content

  • Adele goes to kiss a boy. “My improvised plan is to cover his mouth with my thumbs and then kiss them. It’s a game kids used to play. . . And instead of kissing my thumbs, I press my lips against Charlie’s warm, soft ones.”
  • While playing hide and seek at a party, Adele ends up in a closet with Tori’s boyfriend, Luke. They kiss. Adele, “found my mouth suddenly pressed against his. We weren’t making a sound, but it was like everything inside of me was singing and shouting. I was alive and kissing. . . Under my hands, his shoulders were taunt with muscle. My nose filled with his sharp smell that was at once familiar and not. His mouth tasted like beer.” Tori finds them.
  • At the party, Tori was “dirty dancing with some of the guys, even at one point dropping the straps on her dress and flashing everyone.”
  • Someone says that Tori was “all over Ethan” even though he has a girlfriend.
  • Tori implied that she had a sexual relationship with a student teacher and “that it was her idea.”
  • One of the character’s dads was cheating on his wife, so she kicks him out of the house.
  • Luke kisses Adele. She thinks, “Luke’s lips are so soft, but then they press into me hard. I freeze. My heart pulses in my ears. My skin feels tight. It’s like I’m drowning, like there isn’t enough air.”
  • Adele kisses Charlie. “I put my arms around him. Then I close my eyes and press my mouth to Charlie’s. Just as I remember, his lips are soft and warm, and he tastes like peppermint.”

Violence

  • The story revolves around discovering who murdered Tori. When Adele finds the body, she discovers a “dark line that runs across her throat. She wasn’t choked with hands, but with something like a thin rope. Other, shallower red marks run from just under her chin to the hollow of her throat. Tori must have clawed her own skin, trying to save herself. On the back of her neck, the dark line ends in two purple-red oval bruises.”
  • Tori said her father never “leaves bruises,” but “he’s pushed me a few times when I made him mad. Once he grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go to a party.”
  • Adele meets the ghost of a prostitute that was killed by a customer. The ghost tells Adele, “The guy who did it was one of my regulars.”
  • When Adele’s grandfather discovers that Adele has stopped taking her medication, he slaps her. “My mouth falls open as the blood rushes to my stinging skin.”
  • A girl accuses Adele of killing Tori, then pushes Adele. Someone throws something at Adele. Luke steps in to protect Adele, and fists are thrown. “Then Luke hits him square in the nose. Justin staggers back, blood slicking his upper lip.” A girl slips and hurts her arm.
  • The person who killed Tori tries to kill Adele. “He shifts his grip, and the leash tightens even further, making me cough.” Adele hits the person in the throat and is able to escape. There is a chase and Adele is able to hit the person with a board. “It hits his head with a sound like a cantaloupe falling to the floor.” The person is arrested.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Adele is walking through the park, a girl calls out to her. Adele thinks, “I’m afraid of homeless guys, of drunk guys, of guys who might try to drag me into the bushes. Not of some girl who knows my name.”
  • Adele wonders if her friend is drunk or on drugs.
  • Adele sees ghosts, but her doctor and grandfather think she is schizophrenic. She is supposed to take pills to keep her from being delusional. Adele doesn’t like taking drugs because they “bleed the color from everything. How they make me feel dizzy and drowsy and sick to my stomach.”
  • Adele attends Tori’s party, where teens are drinking alcohol. The ghost of Tori doesn’t remember much about the party because she was drinking “shots.” When Adele saw Tori at the party, “she had a glass in her hand, and half of those times she was shouting ‘Shots’ then tossing down her drink.” The class discusses the dangers of drinking including alcohol poisoning and blackouts.
  • A class assignment asks students to think about Dwight. He “drinks on weekends, he turns into a different person. He is belligerent and aggressive, and often gets into fights.”
  • At the funeral viewing, “cigarette and even pot smoke lingers in the air, and a few of my classmates are tipping back flasks I’m pretty sure hold more than just water.”

Language

  • Oh God and Oh my God are used several times as exclamations.
  • Hell is used three times. For example, when Tori finds Adele kissing her boyfriend, she yells, “What the hell? What the actual hell?”
  • Crap, damn, and pissed are used once.
  • Tori calls Luke a jerk.

Supernatural

  • Adele can see and talk to ghosts of people and animals. The dead are tethered to their body by a cord that runs to their bodies ’ skull. Tori says that some ghosts, “who’ve been here a long time say that folks from really old graves keep getting fainter and fainter. A couple have just disappeared. And people who’re cremated—they say you never see them at all, even if the remains are buried here on the grounds.”
  • Adele meets the ghost of a girl who died on the Oregon Trail. The ghost tells her that wolves would dig up the graves. While on the trail she saw, “an arm lying in the wagon ruts. Just an arm. We never could find the grave from which it came.”

Spiritual Content

  • Tori wonders if she is in “limbo.” But Adele tells her, “I think the Catholics did away with that.” Then Tori asks, “So is this hell? Being stuck here with no one to talk to besides you?”
  • After Tori dies, she realizes how painful it is to have people ignore her, and she says, “Maybe God has a sense of humor.”

Paper Valentine

In the last six months, Hannah’s life has been turned upside down because Hannah’s best friend Lillian died and is now haunting her. Not only is Hannah struggling to understand the self-destructive behavior that led to Lillian’s death, but she is also grappling with changes in her elite friend group. When Hannah runs into bad boy Finny, she can’t decide if she should stay away from the boy with a bad reputation or if she should explore her growing attraction to him.

Then, when someone begins murdering young girls and leaving behind paper valentines, Lilian’s ghost encourages Hannah to look into the crimes. As Hannah discovers gruesome details about the murders, the ghosts of the dead girls begin appearing. But why do they appear when Finny is near? And by investigating, is Hannah making herself a target for the murderer?

Over the course of the book, Hannah struggles with depression and dealing with the death of Lillian. To make matters worse, Lillian has changed in death. Lillian criticizes Hannah for spending time with her friends, even though they were Lillian’s friends when she was alive. Lillian is mean to Hannah and says things like, “Hannah doesn’t like to live in real life. Hannah just wants to pretend that we all live in happy fairy-land, where everyone is super-best friends and no one is a heinous bitch and nothing bad is ever going to happen.” Although much of Hannah’s behavior seems week, she is like many teenagers who struggle with wanting to fit in.

Paper Valentine does an excellent job showing the complexities of people. Although most people think Finny is just a delinquent, he also has a streak of kindness. Hannah is able to look past Finny’s ‘bad boy’ image and see his good side. In addition, Hannah realizes that she and Lillian, “were always trying so hard to be perfect . . . when the funny thing was, we didn’t have to.”

Paper Valentine bounces from topic to topic, including the desire to be perfect, depression, eating disorders, child abuse, and ghosts. None of the topics are dealt with in detail and will leave the readers with unanswered questions. The conclusion was predictable, typical, and lacks insight into the mind of the killer. Those looking for an excellent murder mystery may want to bypass Paper Valentine. Despite its flaws, Paper Valentine is an enjoyable, unique story that junior high readers will enjoy. Paper Valentine is a fast-paced story that has a bit of a scare factor due to the ghosts. Readers will enjoy looking for clues to discover the murderer, and Hannah and Finny have some sweet moments.

Sexual Content

  • While watching the news, someone makes a comment about the news correspondents. “I bet they make out like hyenas as soon as Jim Dean starts giving the weather report.”
  • A boy that Hannah knows “used to go out with Lillian in junior high and now sometimes made out with Angelie.”
  • A boy at school would “grab girls around the waist when they walked by his table in the cafeteria last year and say things like, ’Want to sit on my lap and talk about the next thing that pops up.’”
  • When Hannah picks out some lipstick, she’s afraid her friend will think the “colors are perfect for a disco-clown hooker.”
  • When Hannah thinks of pressing her hips against Finny, “the thought of this is electric, beating in my chest like a birthday wish, dark and warm and secret.”
  • Finny and Hannah kiss several times. The first time, Finny “bends his head and kisses me, just once, then lets me go. When Connor would kiss Angelie in the halls last spring, he did it like he was trying to suck the chocolate off the outside of a Klondike bar. It could last hours. This is more like seeing a star fall—thrilling and soundless and then over.”
  • When Finny kisses Hannah a second time, “his tongue brushes the curve of my bottom lip, grazing the hollow underneath, and something leaps and fidgets in my chest. . . I want him to never stop.”
  • When Hannah goes to Dairy Queen, a girl she knows was “leaning against the side of the little brick building, frantically kissing Austin Dean.”
  • A boy asks, “Hey, do you think if I bleached my hair and started vandalizing street signs or something, Carmen would let me near those exquisite titties?”
  • While in a public place, Hannah kisses Finny so that her friends will see. “He doesn’t react right away, but then his hands move to my hips.”

Violence

  • When someone was bothering Hannah, Finny came to her aid. “Finny had Connor by the collar of his shirt and was holding him so their foreheads were almost touching, but he didn’t say anything. He just leaned over me while Connor yanked on Finny’s wrist, trying to get loose. . . With his hand on the back of Connor’s neck, Finny held Connor away from me. . .”
  • Hannah talks about the murder of Monica Harris. “One of the city garbage collectors found her out in the parking lot behind the Bowl-A-Rama in her pink polyester jacket, beaten dead with a piece of two-by-four and her own ice skates.”
  • Hannah looks at the crime scene photos and sees, “Her face is shockingly white—dead white—and there are dark finger-shaped bruises all over one shoulder. In the blue evening light, the bruises look black. Almost as black as the blood that’s splashed in the weedy grass around her.” The photo is described over five paragraphs.
  • When Finny was younger, a dog bit off his finger. He also has cigarette burns on his back. The abuse is not described.
  • While in elementary school, Hannah was mean to Finny, and he washed her face with snow. “The snow was weeks old, crusty with ice, and when he scrubbed my face with it, the crystals were so sharp they made me bleed.”
  • A boy is in foster care because “his dad was using him for a punching bag.”
  • Hannah and a group of people find a dead body. “I’m looking into the face of a girl, and there’s blood in her hair and splashed down the side of her neck. There’s a smell. . . Her face is pale blue in the light. . .” The scene is described over three paragraphs.
  • The murderer tries to kill Hannah. “He turns and grabs me by the shoulders, slamming me hard against the wall of the bridge. . . When I try to squirm away, prying at his fingers with my free hand, he gives me a shake that nearly pops my shoulder out of its socket. . . That’s when he slaps me. . .” The murderer hits Hannah’s head with something heavy. She is injured but survives. The scene takes place over a chapter.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A shop owner “runs off prints of scowling tattooed drug dealers and drunk, disorderly frat boys standing against a dirty wall outside one of the college bars.”
  • The Qwick-mart has “smashed beer bottles” on the ground outside.
  • Hannah remembers when Lillian was younger and “took that bottle of Sour Apple Pucker from her mom’s liquor cabinet, and we drank it in the back of her garage.”
  • Lillian thinks her mother, “spent the last three years drinking a perfectly decent chardonnay on the couch and waiting for me to stop being so dramatic.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, asshole, bastard, bitch, crappiest, damn, fuck, goddamn, pussies, hell, shit, shitty.
  • Thank god, Jesus, and God are used as exclamations. For example, Hannah’s friends tell her, “God, you’re such a weenie sometimes.”
  • Finny tells someone, “Don’t be a douche.”
  • Ghost Lillian calls a boy a pervert.
  • When a girl’s thong is showing, someone says, “Damn! That is just too much ass for those jeans!”
  • Finny took a stolen bracelet away from a boy and gave it back to Hannah. When she asks if the boy was mad, Finny replies, “Do I give a shit? He can fucking deal with it! I told him that maybe he’s free to act like a total dick any other time, but not to girls and little kids. Not when he’s with me.”

Supernatural

  • Hannah’s friend is a ghost. Hannah narrates, “Ghosts are the kind of thing you go your whole life with everyone telling you they aren’t real. I believe in them anyways, because the world is full of things that no one actually understands. Mostly though, I believe in them because my best friend died six months ago and now she’s with me all the time, materializing silently out of the shadows, creeping closer, reaching out.”
  • Several times, Hannah uses an Ouija board to talk to the spirits of the murdered girls.

Spiritual Content

  • The murderer tells Hannah, “As far as those little bitches knew, I was God.”

 

 

 

Nightbooks

Alex is considered a bit odd by the other kids at school because he likes to spend his time writing scary stories. Disheartened by their constant teasing, Alex sneaks out of his apartment one night to burn his notebook. On the way to the boiler room, the elevator mysteriously stops on the fourth floor. Before he knows it, a witch named Natasha has imprisoned him in her magical apartment. Natasha loves stories, and Alex’s storytelling abilities are what got him captured—and what will keep him alive.

The witch has one other prisoner, a girl named Yasmin. She has long given up hope of escape and tells Alex that to stay alive he will have to continue telling Natasha hair-raising tales. But Alex is running out of story ideas, and he can’t focus on writing while consumed with thoughts of escape.

Nightbooks blends the fairy tale elements of Hansel and Gretel into a modern story that readers will love. Unlike Disney’s version of fairy tales, Nightbooks keeps the dark elements alive by delving into how a person becomes evil. This action-packed story is full of frightening elements, interesting characters, and several twisty surprises. As Alex, Yasmin, and a cat named Lenore join together to defeat Natasha, readers will cheer as the three try to stay alive and find a way to escape.

Alex and Yasmin aren’t the only well-developed characters. The witch Natasha is a uniquely interesting character because she is cruel, but she is also clearly frightened of the creepy, ever-changing apartment in which she lives. Although Natasha is obviously evil, her well-developed character gives the reader a glimpse into her history, adding interest to the story.

Throughout the story, Alex reads his own scary tales, adding another interesting element to Nightbooks. His stories do not distract from the main story, but add more frightening elements—dead children, vampires, and an evil teddy bear. Both Alex’s stories and the main narrative are creepy and scary, but the descriptions are not gory.

Many younger readers will relate to Alex, who feels like he is abnormal and does not fit in. A theme of normalcy is integrated into the story through Alex’s struggle with his desire to be like everyone else. In the end, he realizes, “So what if I write scary stories? I might hurt someone with nouns and adjectives, but I would never hurt someone for real.”

Readers will come away from this story with a message about the importance of courage, compassion, friendship, and accepting yourself. For those who like a fast-paced, frightening story, Nightbooks is a superb scary story for middle school readers.

Sexual Content
• None

Violence
• When Yasmin accidentally feeds a magical plant the wrong food, it produces “danglers.” When a dangler opens, a creature comes out. “Two red pinchers burst through the outer layer of the sac and dug into the wood, gaining purchase and dragging the rest of the body to freedom.” The creature shreds anything it touches. A cat named Lenore tries to catch the creature. “More sounds. Hissing. A buzzing noise, like a flying insect. A pot shattering. Lenore screeched in pain.” More creatures are born, and the kids try to fight them off. Alex “felt a sharp pain in his ankle. He kicked his foot and a furry lump sailed across the room. . . something landed on his lower back and immediately began to climb higher, claws tearing through his shirt and into skin.” The attack takes place over the span of a chapter.
• The witch gets angry with Lenore. “The witch opened her hand and a tiny fireball shot at Lenore. It seared the back of her fur, leaving a black streak against the orange. Lenore yowled in pain.”
• When the witch gets upset at the children that she has captured, she turns them into porcelain dolls.
• Alex tells a story about two brothers. The younger brother dies but comes back one night. The older brother, who was sleeping, felt “something jab him again, harder this time. The mattress lifted into the air for a moment before crashing back down onto its frame.” When Keith tried to get out of the bed, “a hand grabbed his ankle. It was cold and small but strong enough to jerk him off his feet. Keith crashed to the floor.” The story implies that the dead child takes over his brother’s body.
• When Alex, his friend, and the cat go into a passage, a creature greets them. “It had the body of a horse, but its black hair was missing in patches, revealing large swatches of oozing skin.” The creature attacks. “Alex screamed, certain that he was about to be impaled in several places, but the sharp tips of the horns fell just short of his body.”
• Aunt Gris and the witch Natasha fight. “Natasha snarled with frustration and unleashed a barrage of spells, one after the other; choking mist, nooses made of flame, twin skeletons brandishing iron swords. . . Aunt Gris leaped across the room and landed on her back. . .” There was a “short scream of pain followed by horrible crunching sounds—and then nothing at all.”
• At one point, the witch, “seemed determined to fit Yasmin’s entire head in her mouth.” When Alex throws a book of stories into the furnace, the witch tries to save the book, and “Yasmin shoved her from behind. [She] fell forward into the flames.”

Drugs and Alcohol
• None

Language
• Yasmin thinks Alex’s brother “sounds like a jerk.”

Supernatural
• A witch lives in a magical apartment that entices children to enter. “The apartment does what it can to get you inside. Different for everyone . . . Traditionally, it’s some sort of food that draws them. Kids are always thinking with their stomachs, you know.”
• The apartment needs dark magic to stay alive. The witch wants Alex to tell scary stories because “the thing about dark magic, though—it thrives on nightmares. . . When you read it a scary story, you soothe its aches and pains. And then it can rest easy again—at least for a little while.”
• The witch has a business that sells “magic-infused oils. . . A hex for that annoying neighbor, extra luck for a weekend getaway to Atlantic City. And love oils.”
• Alex writes a story about a girl who turns into a vampire when her reflection was stolen.
• Alex meets the original witch, Aunt Gris, who “ate children and devoured their youth.” The witch that captured Alex had “slipped a sleeping potion into [Aunt Gris’s] tea.” Natasha keeps Aunt Gris alive, but asleep.
• When Aunt Gris wakes, she is deformed. “Its fingers were candy canes ending in chiseled nails that looked very, very sharp. They twisted and cracked, testing their newfound freedom. . . Her ears and nose were in the expected places, but her face drooped like melted taffy, and her eyes were gold-foiled chocolate coins pressed deeply into malleable flesh.”
• When Aunt Gris dies, her magic dies and the porcelain children come back to life. “They recalled their names and everything about their lives up until the moment they entered apartment 4E. . . some of the children had been missing for a decade or more and hadn’t seemed to age in the intervening years.”

Spiritual Content
• None

City of Ghosts

A screech of wheels. The grip of freezing water. Death. When Cassidy almost drowns, everything changed. She can now enter the world of the dead. To make things stranger, her best friend, Jacob, is a ghost.

Cassidy didn’t think life could get more complicated. Then her parents agree to film a TV show about the world’s most haunted places and the family heads to Edinburgh, Scotland. Restless ghosts haunt the graveyards, castles, and even the pubs. When Cassidy meets another girl who can see the dead, Cassidy realizes she has a lot to learn. Cassidy soon discovers that in a city of ghosts, danger hides in unexpected places.

Victoria Schwab writes a creepy ghost story that is just the right balance of cuteness, chills, and charm. Scotland’s people and lore come to life as Cassidy visits the historical landmarks including Edinburgh Castle and Mary King’s Close. As Cassidy encounters different ghost stories, Scotland’s history unfolds.

Cassidy’s best friend, Jacob, is a fun addition to the cast of characters. Even though Cassidy has told her parents about Jacob, and Cassidy’s parents research haunted places, they do not believe in ghosts. Cassidy’s caring, quirky parents bring ironic humor to the story that middle school readers will understand.

City of Ghosts is the perfect ghost story for younger readers. The easy-to-read text contains short sentences and is a good blend of action, description, and dialogue. The Harry Potter references will delight readers. Although the plot contains only a few surprises, the story is still solid and engaging. Cassidy’s inquisitive mind and courage will draw the reader into the story. Her relationship with Jacob and her parents are an added bonus. City of Ghosts takes the reader on a spooky adventure that will be hard to forget.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • The narrator almost dies while riding her bike. She is on a bridge when “the truck whipped around the curve and hurtled toward me. I swerved out of the way, and so did the truck, tires screeching as my bike slammed into the railing hard enough to make sparks fly.” She goes into the river, where a boy ghost saves her.
  • A long time ago, a boy died in a school fire. The fire began during a school play. In a panic, the boy “shuffles on his hands and knees until he reaches the trap door (of the stage). . .He pulls the door up and climbs down into the dark just before a piece of burning set collapse on top of the stage, pining the trapdoor shut.”
  • When Cass enters the veil, she sees “a man being hauled toward a platform, where a noose hangs waiting.”
  • Cass’s dad explains how some people would rob graves and take the bodies to medical theaters so medical students could practice on them. Two men, “Decided that instead of digging up corpses, they would simply create their own. . . They murdered sixteen people before they were caught and tried . . .Burke was hanged, and then dissected in an anatomy theater, just as his victims had been.”
  • While in the veil, The Raven, a ghost who steals children, puts Cass under a spell. Then, “her fingers harden like claws. . . she thrust her hand straight into my chest. Cold rushes through me, a bone-chilling cold, worse than the bottom of the river. It feels like icy fingers wrapped around my heart.” She tears Cass’s life’s ribbon out of her chest. In order to come back alive, The Raven must dig up her corpse and place the life’s ribbon in her chest. Cass attempts to get her life’s ribbon back and the struggle is told over several chapters. Cass crawls into a grave, and when The Raven finds her, “The Raven grabs me and throws me out of the grave. . . I land hard on the ground. . . and hit a gravestone, knocking all the air out of my lungs.”
  • While in the veil, Cass sees a ghost who is on a platform, and “a course rope is cinched around his neck.” The execution doesn’t come.
  • Ghosts chase after Cass and Jacob. The ghost children “close in, opening their mouths, and instead of different voices coming out, there’s only one. The Raven’s. Her eerie hypnotic song pours from their lips.” The chase takes place over several chapters.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the characters has two pints of beer—one for himself and one for his friend’s ghost.

Language

  • “Oh god” is used as an exclamation. When Cassidy’s parents want to talk to her, she thinks, “Oh god. I’m going to be a big sister.”

Supernatural

  • Jacob, a ghost who is attached to a living girl, is one of the main characters in the story.
  • Cass can see ghosts and cross the veil between the living and the dead. The narrator explains, “It takes a lot of spirit power for a ghost to reach across the Veil—the curtain between their world and ours. And the ghosts that have that kind of strength, they tend to be really old and not very nice. . . the dead grow strong on darker things. On pain and anger and regret.”
  • Lara casts a spell on a ghost and then reaches in and pulls the ribbon out “. . . The dark thread comes free in her hand, hanging limply from her fingers for a moment before crumbling away to ash. An instant later, the main crumbles, too, just . . . falls apart.” Later Lara explains that she sent him, “To the great unknown? To the silent side? To peace and quiet? Call it what you like. I sent him to the place beyond. Where he’s supposed to be.”
  • The Raven puts two teen boys under a spell. The boys “stand chest-deep in the grave. . . Their expressions are glassy, their breaths fogging as they shovel mound after mound of dirt out of the pit. . . “The boys dig up the Raven’s corpse.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Dream a Little Dream

Liv is used to strange and new things. For all of her life, she has bounced from city to city as she moved from one place to another. This time she and her sister, Mia, are packing up their belongings for England because their mother has garnered a teaching position at Oxford University. Little does she know that this move will be the strangest yet.

Liv finds herself thrust into a world of gossipy blogs, a rich new family, and vivid dreams that make her question her reality. She soon finds herself entangled in bizarre dreams in which she is led to the most popular boys in school, one of which is her new “brother.”  Before she can even adjust to her new life, she is swept away into deals with a demon to free the boys from a terrible fate. Liv’s curious mind drives her closer to the heart of the mystery of the dreams as she searches for the truth underneath all of the madness.

Dream a Little Dream is an entertaining and suspenseful novel that leaves readers on the edge of their seats as they wonder what will happen next. Many of the characters are introduced at the same time, which causes confusion.  However, the story has a creative and engaging premise that is very enjoyable. The reader is able to discover this new world along with Liv and relate to her confusion, fear, and curiosity. The book has a surprising plot twist that adds to the enjoyment of the novel, but what follows that event leaves much to be desired. The attempt to leave room for a sequel ruins the ending and causes the reader to be confused rather than curious about the next installment in the series. Additionally, the novel describes how characters conduct rituals to make deals with a demon, which may be concerning to some parents.

Sexual Content

  • Liv’s mom has a relationship with an English lawyer, who makes her happy. They are described as kissing a few times, but nothing more than that.
  • Florence is described as having, “voluptuous breasts.”
  • The school blog wrote about sports and said, “Aesthetically speaking, those sloppy shirts they wear are the worst (even polo kit has more sex appeal), but all the same I don’t object to the sweaty sight of our four musketeers.”
  • In one of the “dreams”, Henry and Liv hold hands. They also discuss kissing, but only briefly.
  • In reference to Jasper’s dreams, “Most of the people in his dreams are stark naked.”
  • Liv’s mom talks about how when she was fifteen, she “was sitting up at night writing poetry. I was unhappily in love. . . At that age you fall in love with someone else every three weeks.”
  • Liv tells Anabel that she looks like Botticelli’s Venus, to which she responds, “Yes, but only when I’m standing around in a seashell with no clothes on.”
  • Anabel says that Arthur is the great love of her life and that, “it was like a tsunami rolling over us. I knew we were meant for each other, I knew he was the man I’d been waiting for all my life.”
  • Mia and Liv jokingly say that they have an “Operation Marrying Off Lottie” in which they will find their au pair a soulmate so she’ll have something to do when they don’t need her anymore.
  • Grayson and his girlfriend Emily kiss at a party intensely to the point which Liv thinks that it is, “kind of embarrassing to watch.”
  • Liv and her friends walk into a cinema and find a couple in the top row of seats in the dark. The man “began frantically adjusting his clothes . . . he came storming down the steps, his shirt still unbuttoned.” When the woman comes down, Arthur says, “How nice to see you again, Mrs. Kelly . . . and give your husband my regards if he happens to be at the party too.”
  • The four boys repeatedly ask Liv if she is a virgin. It is later revealed that she is.
  • Anabel breaks the rules of the game by having sex. She then has to forfeit and her dog is killed by the demon. It is later revealed that she killed her own dog with poison in order to trick the boys.
  • In the dream world, Henry and Liv kiss several times. They are not described in detail, but are usually described as “soft kisses.”
  • A gossipy girl talks about Arthur and says, “I get goosebumps whenever I set eyes on him. But Henry Harper is totally sweet too. And sexy.”
  • Henry and Liv make out during her sixteenth birthday party. “For a few seconds I forgot to breathe, then I felt my arms rising and going around his neck of their own accord to draw him closer. We weren’t kissing cautiously now, but much more intensely.” They all so make out during a school dance. “I’ve no idea how he did it, but when he kissed me nothing else mattered.”

Violence

  • When Liv went to a middle school in Berkeley, California, a girl gang, “had threatened to force my head into a toilet.” They later actually do shove her head into a toilet and it is described in detail in one of Liv’s dreams. These bullies also say that they squash people’s hands in doors.
  • In a dream, Henry sees his old cat. “He looked just the way he was when I last saw him: all-over blood and with his guts coming out . . .”
  • In one of her first vivid dreams, Liv repeatedly hopes that Lottie won’t show up with a hatchet.
  • In a nightmare, there is a group of enraged basketball fans. Liv says, “It sounds like they are going to kill him any moment now!” The mob begins to chant, “Burn him now, burn the traitor. Burn him now, not a day later!”
  • Liv jokingly remarks about London and says, “Street gangs indulging in shoot-outs the whole time, sex fiends lurking in front gardens, and isn’t that Jack the Ripper just coming around the corner.”
  • During a ritual, Liv, Grayson, Arthur, Jasper, and Henry all take turns cutting their hand with a hunting knife and dribbling their blood into a Chalice full of red wine. This scene is described in detail over several pages.
  • Liv has many dreams about Hamlet after she sees the play, and in these dreams, there are references to the stabbings and deaths of many of the Shakespearean characters.
  • During her sixteenth birthday party, Liv requests that Mia stop her from looking like a “lovelorn sheep” in any way that she can. Mia decides to distract her anytime she looks at Henry in that manner. “I was black and blue around the ribs and had been hit by assorted flying objects: several chestnuts, a spoon, and a blueberry muffin.”
  • Arthur intends on offering Anabel as a human sacrifice in the dream world in order to satisfy the demon. This never happens, but later in the novel, Anabel captures Liv with the intention of killing her as a virginal sacrifice to the demon.
  • When Liv tries to stop what she thinks is the sacrifice of Anabel, she “swung up my right foot and caught him just under the chin as I jumped. Still in the air, I turned at an angle of 280 degrees, and when I landed, my left forearm caught him in the stomach.”
  • An iron torch holder falls on Liv and she blacks out. Following the incident, she has to get several stitches.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At the airport, Liv is stopped for suspicion of drug smuggling because a drug dog smells something in her backpack. It is just German cheese with a strong odor, but the ordeal causes Liv a lot of embarrassment.
  • On several occasions, Jasper helps himself to some of his mother’s sleeping pills in order to remain in the dream world longer.
  • Liv’s mom is accused of smoking pot when she was fifteen, but she defends herself by saying, “Nonsense. I never smoked pot until I went to college.”
  • Grayson tries to deter Liv from going to a party by telling her mother, “These parties are rather wild. I mean there’s a lot of alcohol flowing, and what with Liv being only fifteen.”
  • Liv describes Arthur’s house as looking like “a private clinic for the drug-addicted kids of millionaires.”
  • Jasper makes drinks that contain large amounts of alcohol during an important scene that lasts several pages. He is also later described as “tipsy.”
  • During a party, Arthur drinks gin straight from a bottle.
  • The British teens that Liv meets tell stories of when they were drunk on Halloween.
  • In one of Anabel’s dreams, Arthur walks toward her heroically while carrying a bottle of wine.
  • A drunk truck driver killed one of Anabel’s ex-boyfriends. The accident is not described.
  • At the school dance, Jasper “had somehow managed to get tipsy, although there were no alcoholic drinks.”
  • Anabel and Arthur leave the school dance under the guise that she is terribly drunk. They are actually setting a trap to lure Liv, so Anabel can kill her for the virginal sacrifice.
  • At the conclusion of the novel, Anabel is “lying in a hospital bed in Surrey, stuffed full of mind bending drugs and tied down.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the novel, including hell, bloody hell, shit, and damn.
  • “God,” “my God,” “thank God,” and “oh my God” are used frequently as swear words.
  • Grayson is described as a “stupid show-off” and later as an “idiot.”
  • Mia thinks that her aunts named Gertrude and Virginia have “shitty names.”
  • Liv strongly dislikes Persephone and says that she, “follows me around everywhere, talking to me the whole darn time!”
  • A character is called a “midget.”

 

Supernatural

  • During a ritual, Liv, Grayson, Arthur, Jasper, and Henry all take turns cutting their hand with a hunting knife and dribbling their blood into a Chalice full of red wine. This scene is described in detail over several pages.
  • Liv does not believe in “unlucky numbers any more than I believed in horoscopes, or four leaf clovers and chimney sweeps that brought you luck.”
  • The main characters of the novel conjure a demon and in return for freeing him, have immeasurable power and their dearest wish granted. “If you followed the rituals in this book, Anabel claimed, you could conjure up an ancient demon from the underworld, a demon that could help you gain immeasurable power and grant your dearest wishes.” Their immeasurable power is in the form of dreams in which they can control what happens with a simple thought and enter the dreams of others to learn their deepest secrets and desires.
  • The initial approach to conjuring the demon was not serious. “Conjuring up a demon on Halloween . . . It was fun . . . it seemed to me as harmless as telling your fortune by reading tea leaves. No one expects the tea leaves to develop an independent life of their own and come tormenting you in your dreams by night. Or go about murdering dogs.”
  • When Liv wakes up from a horrific nightmare, her family comes running to make sure that she is okay. Florence asks her, “Did you see a ghost?”

Spiritual Content

  • To upset Florence, Liv makes sarcastic suggestions as to the horrible things that she and her family might be. She says they are, “hopelessly disorganized, or a kleptomaniac, a Republican, a Jehovah’s witness, or anything.”
  • The demon that the group conjures is the “Lord of Shadows and Darkness.” Anabel believes that he is all-powerful and dedicates herself to him like a god. This devotion stems from a time period in her youth when she and her mother were a part of a satanic cult.

          by Morgan Filgas

 

The Hide-and-Seek Ghost

Kaz is an ordinary ghost who hasn’t figured out how to glow. When the house that Kaz and his family live in is torn down, the wind scatters the ghosts and carries Kaz to a library. While at the library, Kaz meets Claire—a human who can see him. Together the two look for Kaz’s family and solve ghostly mysteries in the process.

One of Claire’s classmates, Eli, is known for his pranks. So when he asks Claire to help him rid his family home of a ghost, Claire isn’t sure if Eli really needs help or if he is just trying to pull another prank. Can Kaz and Claire discover if Eli’s home is really haunted?

The Hide-and-Seek Ghost brings Claire’s world and the ghost world to life with black-and-white illustrations that will help readers visualize the characters and actions. The plot focuses on an argument between Kaz’s parents and another ghost as well as the mystery of Eli’s haunted house. The multiple plots make the story choppy and may cause some confusion. Readers will enjoy following the clues to the mystery and looking at the many illustrations that show the characters’ emotions.

The ghosts in the story are not scary; however, there are several scenes where ghosts are separated from family when they leave a building and the wind blows them away. The idea of being accidentally separated from family and not being able to return may frighten some readers. A glossary of ghostly terms helps readers understand those that are used in the story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Many of the characters are ghosts who can choose to be seen and heard by “solids” and who can glow, shrink, expand, and walk through walls.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Haunted

Phoebe isn’t sure what is going on. She keeps jumping; one minute her life is perfectly normal, and the next she is in a different location with different people. Phoebe jumps from time and place, which frightens and confuses her (and the reader). Phoebe wonders if she has a mental disorder or if she is truly jumping back in time. It is not until later that Phoebe realizes that she is in fact dead.

To add to the confusion of the story, Phoebe is trying to discover the secrets behind her parents’ move to the family mansion in England. As Phoebe learns about her ancestor, Madame Arnaud, she discovers that her sister is in grave danger. Madame Arnaud has a devious plan. With the help of Miles and Eleanor, Phoebe tries to find a way to defeat Madame Arnaud and save children from dying.

Miles’s character adds a little bit of romance and mystery, which teens will enjoy. Even though Phoebe and Miles like each other romantically, the story focuses on how they defeat Madame Arnaud.

Although Haunted has an interesting and frightening backstory with Madame Arnaud, the beginning of the story is confusing and difficult to follow. Because of Phoebe’s confusion, she comes across as an unreliable narrator, which makes it harder to sympathize with her. Haunted might be a difficult book for struggling readers.

Sexual Content

  • Phoebe meets Miles and they kiss. “His tongue was warm, but his lips were cold from the pool, a combination that made me crazy with arousal. My nipples hardened against his bare chest, with my swimsuit a scant barrier between us.”
  • Phoebe fantasizes about Miles. “Soon I’d be kissing him for all I was worth, burrowing my fingers into that beautiful, black hair. I’d take my time and lick a slow trail down his neck into the follow near his clavicle.”

Violence

  • While in a trance, Madame Arnaud enters Phoebe’s body and writes about a maid trying to kill her. The murder is not described.
  • Madame Arnaud wanted to live forever and she thought drinking a child’s blood would allow her to live longer. “If she drank the blood of a baby, she got to drink its future, all the decades it was expected to live.”
  • In order to steal the life of children, Madame Arnaud would, “gently lift the child’s arm, or whatever limb had been cut, to her lips and suck away the blood. . . And not just for a few seconds, once the child got used to it. No, she’d take a full suckle like a baby at its mother’s breast. She drank her fill.”
  • Phoebe thinks about kidnapping a child for Madame Arnaud. Phoebe thinks if she does this, Madame Arnaud will leave her sister alone.
  • Phoebe leads Madame Arnaud to a lake where she has set a trap for her. Phoebe watches Madame Arnaud drown.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Madame Arnaud tells Phoebe that when she lived in France, “we drank champagne like it was water.”

Language

  • When Phoebe’s mother sees a puncture wound on Tabby, she says, “My god! How’d you do that? A nail on this goddamn crib?”
  • Phoebe’s teacher thinks she is depressed and gives her the number of a suicide hotline. She thinks, “He actually thought I could do it. He was giving me a goddamn suicide hotline number.”
  • Phoebe cusses occasionally throughout the book. She says crap, goddammit, and damn.
  • A boy tells Phoebe, “I try my best not to be an asshole.”

Supernatural

  • Phoebe sees a vision of a woman whose “Decayed skin revealed the muscles underneath. Her right index finger had decomposed so much that just one long bone stuck out at the end.”
  • Phoebe mysteriously jumps back in time and she’s not sure if she time-traveled or if it was just a weird memory.
  • Phoebe talks about an Ouija board and automatic writing. “Basically, you sit with pen and paper and invoke a spirit . . . you invite them to use your body, and while you’re in a trance, they write their message as fast as they can.” Later in the story, Madame Arnaud enters Phoebe’s body and writes her story.
  • The mansion where Phoebe’s family lives is full of ghosts, including the ghost of the babies who Madame Arnaud killed.
  • A character tells Phoebe about a woman named Elizabeth Bathory who “Bathed in the blood of virgin peasants to keep her skin fresh and youthful. She also, if the victim was beautiful, drank the blood.”
  • In the end, the ghosts are “released” and go on to the afterlife.

Spiritual Content

The story contains a pagan yew tree that has a Rune on it. The tree aids in killing Madame Arnaud. Phoebe believes that “the house is malevolent. But something brought us together, something kept sending you to your car and me to the pool. It wanted us to figure things out and fix things.”

School Freezes Over!

A terrible blizzard hits Eerie Elementary and traps all of the students inside. Icy wind howls through the halls, icicles drip from the ceiling, and living snow begins to pile up. Sam and his friends discover that mad scientist Orson Eerie has an evil plan to return in human form. Can Sam and his friends defeat Orson before he turns everyone into popsicles?

The next installment in the Eerie Elementary series, School Freezes Over! will continue to captivate readers because of its spooky, action-packed fun. Many of the pages end with cliffhangers that will make the reader want to continue reading. Black and white illustrations and onomatopoeia help create the story’s tone. The book contains simple sentence structures and an easy-to-follow plot. Like the other books in the series, School Freezes Over! is a fast-moving and fun book to read. Sam and his friends use problem-solving skills and science to defeat Orson Eerie and, in the process, show what true friendship looks like.

The easy-to-follow plot is entertaining and appropriate for newly independent readers. However, School Freezes Over! will be enjoyed by older readers as well. Those who enjoy the Notebook of Doom series will want to jump into the world of Eerie Elementary. Readers will learn about several science projects and may want to research how to perform them at home. The story ends with discussion questions that add to the learning value of the book.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Orson Eerie creates a storm. “The windows all flew open at once! The blizzard stormed into the hallway! Snow filled the air, and icy water splashed down.”
  • A hose tugs Antonio into the bathroom. “Antonio cried out. But his shrieks were cut short with the door slammed shut. . . . Sam knew that Eerie Elementary was a living, breathing monster. To stay alive it must eat.” Antonio was turning into a “Popsicle. An ice Popsicle to chomp on.”
  • Huge icicles begin to crash and almost hit Sam and Lucy.
  • The snow comes alive. “Horrifying snow arms grew from the piles. Long, frosty fingers reached for Sam. Sam skated faster, steering into the center of the hall. Antonio and Lucy swung wildly as the monstrous hands clawed at them.”
  • A tornado is in the school. “The tornado was spinning and swirling down the hall. Sam wanted to just let the icy storm pass. But he knew Orson Eerie fed on students. And he knew if Orson Eerie made it to the gym, he would feast on everyone!” The friends are able to stop the tornado.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • “Orson Eerie was a mad scientist. He was also the architect who designed Eerie Elementary almost one hundred years ago. Orson Eerie found a way to live forever—he became the school. Orson Eerie was the school, and the school was Orson Eerie! Eerie Elementary was a living, breathing thing that fed on students.”
  • Orson Eerie has devised a plan to bring himself back to life.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

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