EVIL EYE

Some kids have been waiting their entire lives for a book about a floating eyeball, even if they didn’t know it. This is that book.

This is the kind of book that’s impossible to describe to a friend. Anyone who tries will sound like a small child describing a dream: This boy is in a cemetery. And he pricks his eye on top of a gravestone. And then his eye starts floating out of his head, and it’s flying around everywhere. And then the eye starts telling him to do things, only no one else can hear it. A five-word description might be better: It is a horror story. It has enough gross-out effects to appeal to R.L. Stine fans, and a few scenes near the end are frightening enough to scare full-grown adults. Like the classic Tales of the Crypt comics and Twilight Zone episodes, this is a story with no happy ending. Readers need to know that going in, since for several chapters in a row, it looks as though Jake and his friends might find a way to defeat the monsters. It’s important to remember the title of the book.

The plot is hardly ever credible, but readers will be too scared to notice. And the best horror stories don’t need to make any more sense than a dream—or a nightmare.