Not all true, but truly nightmarish.
Author Hale’s namesake—spy and Revolutionary hero Nathan Hale—huddles with compatriots beneath a gallows as they regale one another with ghoulish tales drawn from history, literature, and legend.
Hale’s latest set of Hazardous Tales begins, as it really needs to, with a cautionary note: “Are you a second grader reading way above your age level? If so, set this book down. It’s not for you.” Indeed, the book doesn’t skimp on the disturbing bits. With evocative titles like “The Demon Cat” and “The Head in the Jar” to provide at least a little warning, the author gathers a variety of terrifying tales; three involve the Jersey Devil, while one centers on a butler going bloodily berserk in a house built by Frank Lloyd Wright. Others feature the discovery of a haunted well filled with the corpses of soldiers killed in a Civil War battle, gruesome revenge, and monsters like the Boo Hag, a skin changer who sucks blood through sleepers’ noses. All these tales, eerie as they are on their own, are cranked up into screamer territory by Hale’s two-tone illustrations, which, with indecent relish and fanatical attention to realistic detail, depict fresh and not-so-fresh corpses, a radiation victim’s rotted face, a man’s buttocks being hacked off with a sword, leering skeletons, chopped-off limbs, and creepy night creatures with big, sharp teeth. The cast of storytellers, horrified onlookers, and all-too-often mutilated victims is racially diverse.
Not all true, but truly nightmarish. (bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction/horror. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781419773204
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Abrams Fanfare
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls.
Three young ghost trappers take on deadly wraiths and solve an old murder case in the bargain to kick off Stroud’s new post-Bartimaeus series.
Narrator Lucy Carlyle hopes to put her unusual sensitivity to supernatural sounds to good use by joining Lockwood & Co.—one of several firms that have risen to cope with the serious ghost Problem that has afflicted England in recent years. As its third member, she teams with glib, ambitious Anthony Lockwood and slovenly-but-capable scholar George Cubbins to entrap malign spirits for hire. The work is fraught with peril, not only because a ghost’s merest touch is generally fatal, but also, as it turns out, as none of the three is particularly good at careful planning and preparation. All are, however, resourceful and quick on their feet, which stands them in good stead when they inadvertently set fire to a house while discovering a murder victim’s desiccated corpse. It comes in handy again when they later rashly agree to clear Combe Carey Hall, renowned for centuries of sudden deaths and regarded as one of England’s most haunted manors. Despite being well-stocked with scream-worthy ghastlies, this lively opener makes a light alternative for readers who find the likes of Joseph Delaney’s Last Apprentice series too grim and creepy for comfort.
A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes, replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls. (Ghost adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map.
A girl who delights in the macabre harnesses her inherited supernatural ability.
It’s not just her stark white hair that makes 11-year-old Zee Puckett stand out in nowheresville Knobb’s Ferry. She’s a storyteller, a Mary Shelley fangirl, and is being raised by her 21-year-old high school dropout sister while their father looks for work upstate (cue the wayward glances from the affluent demography). Don’t pity her, because Zee doesn’t acquiesce to snobbery, bullying, or pretty much anything that confronts her. But a dog with bleeding eyes in a cemetery gives her pause—momentarily—because the beast is just the tip of the wicked that has this way come to town. Time to get some help from ghosts. The creepy supernatural current continues throughout, intermingled with very real forays into bullying (Zee won’t stand for it or for the notion that good girls need to act nice), body positivity, socio-economic status and social hierarchy, and mental health. This debut from a promising writer involves a navigation of caste systems, self-esteem, and villainy that exists in an interesting world with intriguing characters, but they receive a flat, two-dimensional treatment that ultimately makes the book feel like one is learning a ho-hum lesson in morality. Zee is presumably White (as is her rich-girl nemesis–cum-comrade, Nellie). Her best friend, Elijah, is cued as Black. Warning: this just might spur frenzied requests for Frankenstein.
A didactic blueprint disguised as a supernatural treasure map. (Supernatural. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304460-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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