Unearthly thrills and chills balanced by tweens’ down-to-earth concerns.
The Graveyard Girls contend with scam artists, a haunted doll, and a disappearing grave in this third series entry.
Notorious local murderer Silas Hoke’s grave has vanished. It’s not just that his bones are gone—the ground itself appears completely undisturbed. As the friends attempt to solve this mystery, complete with spectral clues that they struggle to decipher, they each have other issues to contend with. Whisper is upset about her father’s recent engagement, Frannie is bored without an acting project, Zuzu is trying to communicate with the ghost of Ginny Baker (whom Hoke killed in the 1920s), and the doll Sophie’s sister gave her has come to life and is trying to hurt her. Gemma continues her efforts to save her family’s business, the Spirit Sanctuary, by convincing the Borderlyne triplets, YouTube ghost hunters with millions of followers, to film an episode of their show at the store, but the internet celebrities’ interest turns out to be more earthly in nature. It’s also Gemma’s turn to tell a creepy story at their club meeting, and she delivers a stomach-turning O. Henry–style tale. Fans of the series will be delighted to continue the girls’ adventures and will enjoy the gentle scares that are tempered by realistic family and friendship issues. Most characters read white. Zuzu’s surname cues her as Japanese American, and a previous entry depicted Sophie as Black.
Unearthly thrills and chills balanced by tweens’ down-to-earth concerns. (Horror. 8-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781454944584
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings.
A loquacious, lovable dog narrates the challenges of shelter life as he longs for a home.
Friendly three-legged Chance is the perfect guide to Dogtown, a shelter that houses both warmblooded and robot dogs. In fact, she’s “Management’s lucky charm,” roaming freely without being confined to a cage and leaving kibble for her mouse friend. Life is pretty good. But she still yearns for reunification with her family and, like many of the living pups, harbors suspicion of her robot counterparts, who are convenient and more easily adoptable but lacking in personality. When Metal Head, an oddly engineered e-dog, bonds with a child during a shelter reading program, Chance’s assumptions about heartless robot dogs are upended. As Chance connects with Metal Head, the two make a brief escape into the wider world, and Chance learns a familiar lesson: Everyone longs for a place to belong. Memories of Chance’s happy home loom large in her mind: Easy days with the Bessers, a sweet Black family, were disrupted by a neglectful dogsitter, the accident that cost Chance her leg, and Chance’s flight in search of safety. Chance’s chatty narrative style includes flashbacks, vignettes about fellow shelter pets, and thoughtful observations, for example, about the “boohoos,” or sad new arrivals. The story offers many moments of laughter and reflection, all greatly enhanced by West’s utterly charming grayscale illustrations of irresistible pooches.
Eminently readable and appealing; will tug at dog-loving readers’ heartstrings. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781250811608
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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