FINISHED:
Rhodes, Jewel Parker. (2018). Ghost Boys. New York: Little, Brown/Hachette.

[.]

STARTED:
Hanlon, Abby. (2018). Dory Fantasmagory: Head in the Clouds. New York: Dial/Penguin Random House.

[LOVE THIS SERIES.]

*

FINISHED:
Gemeinhart, Dan. (2018). Good Dog. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Cuevas, Michelle. (2017). The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole. New York: Dial/Penguin Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Balliett, Blue. (2018). Out of the Wild Night: A Ghost Story. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Gemeinhart, Dan. (2018). Good Dog. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Avi. (2016). School of the Dead. New York: HarperCollins.

[Tony and his family move to San Francisco so that he can attend the alma mater, The Penda School, of his afterlife-believing, recently deceased Uncle Charlie.  Upon starting seventh grade at his new school, Tony not only begins to see the ghost of his dead Uncle, but also that of a long dead student, while finding out that over the life of the school, students have been mysteriously disappearing every seven years.  Avi’s latest has its moments where the reader will be fooled by some red herrings, as Tony eventually finds himself caught between a ghost who needs his help, a group of students called the Weird History Club who investigate the odd goings on at the school, and teachers who advise Tony to stay away from the Weird History Club… thus putting him in a position where he’s not sure who to believe has his best interest at heart, and wondering if there is anyone that he can trust.  This aside, the story being set in San Francisco seems inconsequential, and rather than building real tension, this is a standard ghost story with few real scares that feels padded and overlong (not helped by the lack of chapter designations), giving the impression that it could’ve made a much more effective short story.]

STARTED:
Springstubb, Tricia. (2016). Every Single Second. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[Rereading before writing a formal review for ACL.  As previously mentioned (and seen by the author!), MOONPENNY ISLAND, from last year, was one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITES, so I'm trying this one again to solidify my feelings.]

*

FINISHED:
Telgemeier, Raina. (2016). Ghosts. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Cole, Henry. (2016). The Somewhat True Adventures of Sammy Shine. Atlanta: Peachtree.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Hardinge, Frances. (2016). The Lie Tree. New York: Amulet/Abrams.

[Took me awhile to finish this one...  True, I read The BFG in between, but although I found The Lie Tree just as remarkable as the hype, it was still a bit of a slog for me.]

STARTED:
DiCamillo, Kate. (2016).  Raymie Nightingale.  Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[We finally got copies in!  I can now see what all of the chatter is about!]

*

FINISHED:
Martel, Yann. (2016). The High Mountains of Portugal. New York: Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Eagar, Lindsay. (2016). Hour of the Bees. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Stroud, Jonathan. (2013). The screaming staircase (Lockwood & Co.: Book 1). New York: Disney/Hyperion.


[.]


STARTED:
Blackwood, Sage. (2013). Jinx. New York: HarperCollins.


[.]

*

FINISHED:
Oliver, Lauren. (2011). Liesl & Po. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Haskell, Merrie. (2011). The princess curse. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Brosgol, Vera. (2011). Anya's ghost. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[REALLY REALLY liked this one...]

STARTED:
Bruchac, Joseph. (2011). Wolf mark. New York: Tu/Lee & Low.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Scieszka, Jon [ed.]. (2011). Guys read: Thriller. New York: Walden Pond/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Skye, Obert. (2011). Wonkenstein: the creature from my closet. New York: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt.

[Reviewing for ACL...]

*

FINISHED:
Archer, E. (2011). Geek fantasy novel. New York: Scholastic.

[[Reviewed from ARC.] Ralph is an American tech-geek hired by his aunt and uncle to come to their aging British castle to, ostensibly, help them set up a wireless network. Upon his arrival, Ralph meets his three cousins and another aunt, Aunt Chessie, whom the rest of the family has seemed to ostracize. Ralph eventually comes to understand that his mother and her sisters are fairy godmothers of a sort, imbued with the ability to grant each child one wish. However, after a mishap with Chessie’s son many years earlier, the women have sworn off that part of their nature. Naturally, each of Ralph’s cousins ends up making a wish which Aunt Chessie is only too happy to grant, and which ends up transporting each of them to an alternate reality. One cousin’s wish involves mobilizing a bunch of fairies to rebel against their oppressors, another is a riff off Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen”, and in the last Ralph must travel to purgatory and the underworld. Archer (actually author Elliot Schrefer) has written a novel for which the title is perfectly apt: the author has thrown in every fantasy creature, setting, and convention imaginable and, thus, comes across as just too ambitious. By the time you get to Ralph finding a teddy bear with a mirror in its paw which he then wraps around his head in order to view a wintery “otherworld”, you know that Archer has gone overboard. A bit of redemption comes toward the end of the novel when the narrator begins to cross the line and starts to interact with the characters, setting up a plot twist that will likely surprise most readers, and turning the novel into a meta-fictional whirlwind with a rather unconventional denouement. Rather bloated, unfocused and confounding, though, Archer’s novel, even with its exploding bunny rabbits, is just overdone.]

STARTED:
Yee, Lisa. (2011). Warp speed. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Hahn, Mary Downing. (2010). The ghost of Crutchfield Hall. New York: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin.

[My official ACL review:

Orphan Florence is pulled from the orphanage where she’s been living for the past seven years and whisked away to Crutchfield Hall, a rural gothic mansion where a well-to-do aunt and uncle reside. Florence quickly realizes that all is not well, however, when she discovers that her recently deceased cousin, Sophia, seems to be lingering and has it out for Florence’s ailing cousin James. What’s worse, Sophia’s “death day” is approaching (it’s been a full year since she died) and her influence on Florence is strengthening while Florence finds it harder and harder to resist Sophia’s pull. This is a vivid, if typical, Victorian ghost story steeped in rich language and descriptive passages which give a strong sense of place and mood and, at a brisk 150 pages, would be perfect for those ready to graduate from collections of shorter scary stories. [Reviewed from ARC.]]

STARTED:
Berlin, Eric. (2007). The puzzling world of Winston Breen. New York: Puffin/Penguin.

[Heard it's fun.]

*

FINISHED:
Griffin, Adele. (2010). Picture the dead. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Fire.

[My review for ACL:

When both her twin brother, Toby, and her fiance, William, are killed in the Civil War, orphan Jennie Lovell, now living with her snobby, brutish aunt and uncle feels utterly alone. After having her picture taken by a “spirit photographer”, Jennie sees in the developed photos unexplainable objects which, in turn, end up being clues that William seems to be sending from the grave. Griffin has crafted a gothic ghost story of love and loss in which the first person narration sounds true and of the day as well as coming across as perfectly suited to the genre. Brown’s “period” ink-rendered photos and scrapbook curios appear between each chapter lending a visual to the narrative, although photos taken to mimic the period would’ve gone further in making the tale more “realistic” and eerie. Included are short explanations of the society of the day in which the novel takes place, the Civil War, Confederate prisoner-of-war camps, Spiritualism and spiritual photography. Mannered and moody in perfect amounts, this one should appeal to fans of other Spiritualist novels such as Ian Lawrence’s Séance (Yearling, 2009) and Laura Amy Schlitz’s A Drowned Maiden’s Hair (Candlewick, 2006). (Reviewed from ARC.)]

STARTED:
Horvath, Polly. (2010). Northward to the moon. New York: Schwartz & Wade.

[Really enjoyed the first book...]

*

FINISHED:

Buckley-Archer, Linda. (2006). Gideon the cutpurse: Being the first part of the Gideon trilogy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[.]

STARTED:
Konigsburg, E.L. (1969). About the B'nai Bagels. New York: Aladdin/Simon & Schuster.

[Time to satisfy my Konigsburg addiction.]

*

FINISHED:

Niffenegger, Audrey. (2009). Her fearful symmetry. New York: Scribner.

[Twin girls, upon reaching their 21st birthday(s), inherit an apartment in London owned by their mother's twin who recently passed away. After moving in they interact with the man downstairs who was their aunt's lover, an OCD hoarder agoraphobic upstairs, and a large old cemetery right outside their door. The girls are unsure of where they want their lives to go and are dreadfully unable to do anything without the other one around Secrets abound and supernatural occurrences in their apartment slowly draw the twins apart until one makes a drastic decision in an effort to permanently cut ties with her sister. Not bad... it kept me pretty well engaged but not super compelled to keep reading. In truth, I much preferred The Time Travelers Wife - it just seemed to have more of a central story to push everything along. Here, there are a couple of characters who just seem there to pad the novel and the whole thing lacks a real central storyline. I enjoyed it for the most part, but thought that it had so much potential that wasn't quite reached.]

STARTED:
Alexander, Lloyd. (1968). The high king. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

[Finishing up the series... finally.]

*

FINISHED:

Gaiman, Neil. (2008). The graveyard book. New York: HarperCollins.

[I was actually much more impressed with this one that I thought I might be. The novel begins with a family of 4 being murdered by a mysterious stranger. Well, actually, only 3 are murdered - the baby boy crawls out of his crib, out the front door, and into a nearby graveyard where he is taken in and raised by the (eccentric) ghosts of the graveyard's inhabitants. Somewhat episodic, Bod (his "adoptive" parents name the boy Nobody Owens) wanders the graveyard finding treasure in an old tomb, helps to get a gravestone for a witch, befriends a young girl, eventually attends school (though is careful to keep a low profile), and learns life lessons and tricks from the local ghosts. Naturally, there is a thread of dread throughout knowing that the tall dark stranger who murdered Bods parents is searching for Bod in order to finish the job. A ghostly take on Kipling's "Jungle Book" stories that satisfied my need to read something Halloween-seasonal.]

STARTED:
Hautman, Pete. (2009). How to steal a car. New York: Scholastic.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

*