I sometimes find I have little patience for "scary" stories for kids. Why? Because they're never scary! Finding kid friendly material that actually delivers scares is pretty rare these days. They usually either try too hard or don't try at all. Luckily for us, we have a collection of tales that both the young and the old can enjoy and be perfectly scared by. Let's proceed.
Tim, Willa, Noah, and Steve are known as the Fearsome Foursome, a group of kids from the same school who just love to make up and tell scary stories. One night, they find an invitation at their usual meeting place...an invitation to a creepy old mansion in the Louisiana bayou. It is within this creepy mansion that the Fearsome Foursome meet the mansion's librarian who wants in on the fun. He then proceeds to tell them four frightening tales featuring the Foursome...an they're not allowed to leave until theirs stories are finished.
One thing I really appreciated about this book was its voice. The narrator of the book, presumably the Mansion's Ghost Host, is a riot! The sarcastic wit and hilarious jibs are just perfectly timed, giving this book an admittedly dark sense of humor but a good one. It often breaks the fourth wall and addresses the reader, pointing out flaws the characters make and cliches. While it is funny and very well done, it doesn't shy away from the scares either. That same tone of voice that makes you laugh can also make you shiver and never mixes the two, keeping everything in tone. As the stories get more intense, the jibes lessen and you really feel the urgency and fear the stories. It was brilliantly well done.
I also like the four heroes and the stories that went with them. While the plots to each of these stories isn't exactly unique, they help to build the kids as characters and give us an idea of what they're really like. Tim gets possession of a demonic baseball glove, Willa longs for a dead pet back, Noah tries to spite his stepfather with poor results, and Steve makes a dare that goes too far. As each of their situations gets worse, you feel for them and you want them to come through from the horrors they're facing. They felt like real kids and I appreciated that about them.
The peril that the kids face in these stories is, while fantastical, intense. Will kids find this scary? Well, I hope so because that's what the book is for. Scaring kids! Even so, the humor in the narration and the fact that this is a kids book soften the blow just enough to where I don't think anyone will be psychologically harmed. I mean, come on, this is Disney's Haunted Mansion, remember? It's not going to scar somebody for life. Kids can read this and be enjoyably afraid. I would feel perfectly comfortable letting a kid read this. Just the right amount of tension, high stakes, and otherworldly creeps come together in just the right amount of terror, which everyone can appreciate.
As this is based on the Disneyland ride, it did have to include several references scattered throughout the stories and not just in the framing device. These are most noticeable in Steve's story, but they can be found all over. Sometimes these are nicely integrated and other times they stick out like a hitchhiking ghost's thumb. But this is an extreme nitpick and my trying really hard to find something wrong with the book and that's saying a lot.
Final Verdict
Ghoulishly delightful and just the right amount of scary with a sharp sense of humor, this book had it all. I really enjoyed this one and it got me eager to read the books that come after it (this is the first in a series). And it is with a grim grin that I welcome this book to the Shelf of Recommendation!
Have you read the book? What did you think? Comment below and share your thoughts. Have a book you'd like me to read or would like to make a recommendation? Contact me on goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/65448711-michelle-beer
Next Time: Now this is a haunted house of epic proportions....
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