The Secret Dead Club by Karen Strong (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 240 pages, grades 4-7). Wednesday has always been able to see ghosts, a power she inherited from her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. When an encounter with a wicked ghost almost kills her, Wednesday and her mother end their extended RV trip and return to her great-grandmother’s house in Georgia. There, Wednesday finds herself drawn to two girls who have formed a secret Dead Club for those who can either see ghosts or believe that they exist. A third girl has left the club under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and a fourth member died the previous year and starts appearing to Wednesday as a ghost. Most of the women in her family have lost their ability to see ghosts when they hit puberty, so Wednesday isn’t sure how much longer she’ll hold onto her powers. When the girls in the club need her help to resolve a potentially dangerous ghostly mystery, Wednesday has to decide how much she is willing to trust them, herself, and the ghosts to try to set things right.
Full disclosure: this is the only book in this post that I actually read from start to finish. Although there was some creepy ghost stuff–including a prologue in which a grieving father becomes possessed by an evil spirit and kills his two children–a lot of the focus is on the changing nature of middle school friendships and the emotions that accompany those transitions. I saw a review that called this book the Baby-Sitters Club meets Stranger Things, and I feel like that is an apt description.
Give Me Something Good to Eat by D. W. Gillespie (Delacorte Press, 272 pages, grades 4-7). Every year, the town of Pearl, North Carolina celebrates Halloween with a big blowout, but before the night is over, a child disappears, and all the residents’ memories of that kid are wiped clear. All of them, that is, except for seventh grader Mason, who still recalls the time five years ago that his best friend Marcus vanished, and even his own mother forgot that he had ever existed. When Mason’s younger sister Meg goes missing, it’s up to him and his three friends, Serge, Becca, and Mari, to discover the town’s dark underside and rescue Meg. UnderPearl is filled with monsters, giant spiders, and a horrifying witch who controls everything and has no intention of letting Meg escape.
I started reading this book just before bed, and after two nights of bad dreams, I finally decided it was not for me. Horror fans will undoubtedly love the monsters and frightening situations the kids find themselves in, but be warned that this is a genuinely scary book that may not be for everyone.
Once They See You: 13 Stories to Shiver and Shock by Josh Allen, illustrations by Sarah Coleman (Holiday House, 192 pages, grades 4-7). Holiday House sent me a copy of this book recently. I was delighted, since Josh Allen’s other other short story collections, Only if You Dare and Out to Get You are extremely popular in my library. Fans of Alvin Schwartz’s classic Scary Stories collections will also enjoy these.