THE BEASTIES

Sleator (The Night the Heads Came, 1996, etc.) stretches plenty of catgut in this latest shocker about physical dismemberment. When 15-year-old Doug learns that his botanist father plans to relocate the family to the local forest, he isn't pleased about leaving school or having only his ten-year-old sister, Colette, for a buddy. His unease blossoms into full-blown anxiety when the family reaches their isolated home, a postcard from Twin Peaks, including the housekeeper, Mrs. Slosh, who sports a Halloween mask to cover the nose she can't afford to fix. Colette is unfazed, however, and when the pair discover a trapdoor in their backyard, she jumps down and makes friends with the beasties—or "the family," as they call themselves—subterranean sub-human life forms forced to borrow body parts from humans in order to survive. Fingers, the blind second-in-command, explains that the family's health is linked to the woodlands, which are being deforested by a logging company (Sleator is vague on the details). The plot moves quickly, and soon a war between the beasties and the loggers erupts: All too soon, the remaining beastie tribes are licking their wounds and Doug donates one of his eyes to make Fingers the new queen. The only authentically bizarre moment comes when the children must explain to their parents what happened to Doug's eye. Lots of cheap tricks add up to a rushed and silly sideshow. (Fiction. 11-13)