A fast-paced roller-coaster ride of a novel that effectively blends the familiar with the uncanny.
A sleepover at an amusement park in Georgia turns terrifying.
New eighth grade student Brie Turner has her sights set on befriending the wealthy, pretty, popular girls everyone calls “the Ems”—Emma Bryan, Emerson Smith-Robinson, and Emily Bell. She’s gleeful when a field day triumph leads to an invitation to Emily’s birthday party: The four of them will have an overnight stay at Wildwoods, a nearby amusement park. But Brie begins to see a darker side to the Ems, especially when a game of Truth or Dare leads to her being trapped in an off-limits part of the park with “no adults, no lights, no working bathrooms”—on the anniversary of a 1995 accident that killed four teenagers. She encounters some older teens, CJ, Dawn, and Trip, who take her under their wing, and she revels in their acceptance and camaraderie, but she’s soon plagued by dark visions and ends up in genuine danger even though her new friends put themselves at risk to help her. The frights are accompanied by strong messaging about bullying and the value of being yourself and finding friends who like the real you. Dawson’s smooth writing brings the well-drawn amusement park setting to life. Characters are largely white presenting or racially ambiguous; Brie has tan skin that’s “genetic,” Emerson has beaded braids, and Dawn is Asian.
A fast-paced roller-coaster ride of a novel that effectively blends the familiar with the uncanny. (map) (Horror. 8-13)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9780593486832
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
Full of puzzles to think about, puns to groan at and references to children’s book titles, this solid, tightly plotted read...
When a lock-in becomes a reality game, 12-year-old Kyle Keeley and his friends use library resources to find their way out of Alexandriaville’s new public library.
The author of numerous mysteries for children and adults turns his hand to a puzzle adventure with great success. Starting with the premise that billionaire game-maker Luigi Lemoncello has donated a fortune to building a library in a town that went without for 12 years, Grabenstein cleverly uses the tools of board and video games—hints and tricks and escape hatches—to enhance this intricate and suspenseful story. Twelve 12-year-old winners of an essay contest get to be the first to see the new facility and, as a bonus, to play his new escape game. Lemoncello’s gratitude to the library of his childhood extends to providing a helpful holographic image of his 1968 librarian, but his modern version also includes changing video screens, touch-screen computers in the reading desks and an Electronic Learning Center as well as floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stretching up three stories. Although the characters, from gamer Kyle to schemer Charles Chiltington, are lightly developed, the benefits of pooling strengths to work together are clear.
Full of puzzles to think about, puns to groan at and references to children’s book titles, this solid, tightly plotted read is a winner for readers and game-players alike. (Mystery. 9-13)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87089-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
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