WAKING THE DEAD AND OTHER FUN ACTIVITIES

Life (and death) in a small-town funeral home where magical services range from granting posthumous wishes to full, if inadvertent, resurrections.

As the descendant of a long line of benign witches, 12-year-old Kimmy is thrilled to be learning from her Grandma Bev how to temporarily Wake recently deceased clients of the family’s funeral home to offer them the courtesy of a (reasonable) last request. Then her beloved but overprotective mentor dies amid a rash of similarly untimely expirations. Kimmy discovers the hard way not only that much about her magic and its steep personal cost has been hidden from her but also that a powerful evil witch is in the area, fatally feeding on the life force of her hapless victims. Though this sounds like it should be a scary tale, Lyall keeps the tone light. Kimmy, less frightened than grieving and determined to figure things out without troubling her parents too much about the undead boy in her bedroom or other misadventures, is comfortable around corpses and only obliquely mentions bodily fluids and the more macabre details of the family business. She’s also surrounded by allies both living and, well, not zombies (or at least not the brain-eating sort), who easily work together to expose and, ultimately, deliver just deserts to the malefactor. Kimmy and her family are cued white; there’s racial diversity in the supporting cast.

Expect more chortles than screams; warm family feelings and comical touches keep the terror low-key.