Just in time for Halloween, we have three spooky reads for teens, two featuring ghosts - one funny, one scary - and a third in which souped-up voodoo dolls blow people's limbs off. Strangely, that one is funny, too.
In The Dead Kid Detective Agency by Evan Munday, 13-year-old October Schwartz makes friends with a group of spectral teenagers who hang around the cemetery in her new hometown, Sticksville. October lives next door but likes to sit amongst the tombstones, working on her horror novel.
Did she accidentally summon the ghosts with words from her story? October isn't sure. All she knows is that the five spirits, each from a different period of the town's past, can do cool stuff like walk through walls or turn semi-solid to handle objects.
October's favourite teacher, Mr. O'Shea, dies soon afterwards when a car in the school's auto shop falls from a lift, crushing him. The police write it off as an accident but October isn't convinced. Thinking he was murdered - perhaps by another teacher - October sends the ghosts to infiltrate the police station, confront the school janitor and search teachers' homes for evidence. The dead kids produce some quick results, and some funny slapstick moments, but October knows they will disappear on Halloween night. As she races to solve Mr. O'Shea's murder, will she make herself a target?
In A Bad Day for Voodoo by Jeff Strand, a humourless, teen-hating teacher has given Tyler Churchill a zero on an exam, thinking he cheated. Outraged, Tyler complains to his friend Adam, who buys a voodoo doll so Tyler can exact revenge. Tyler tells him the idea is ridiculous. Who believes in voodoo, anyway? To placate his friend, Tyler sticks a pin in the doll's leg during class one day, then watches in disbelief as the teacher's leg detaches itself, shooting to the far end of the classroom in a spray of blood.
The teacher lives but after an ambulance carts him away, Tyler and Adam get into a shoving match in which they accidentally jostle the doll. Next thing they hear, Mr. Click has died of a broken neck.
Afraid his friend will rat on him, Adam acquires a voodoo doll of Tyler before coming to his senses. The rest of the book tracks Adam, Tyler and his girlfriend Kelley as they go on an epic crosstown quest to have the magic taken off the doll before someone squashes it, tears it up, sticks pins in it or feeds it to their dog.
Replete with cannibals, a bit of bad language, lots of gore, a zombie and some funny dialogue, A Bad Day for Voodoo is best for readers from Grades 8 and up with strong stomachs.
Like that kid from The Sixth Sense, Callum Scott has always seen ghosts. Growing up outside an old English town, near an abandoned church and graveyard, he has lots of opportunities. At the beginning of Hunted by Adam Slater, he has grown blasé about the ability. A couple of new things, however, are freaking him out.
All of a sudden, Callum seems able to see into the near future, an ability that allows him to avert a couple of deadly accidents. Less appealing is his psychic connection to teenagers who are being murdered by some sort of demonic entity. Could it be the pale boy who drips blood that Callum has seen alongside a massive black hound in the nearby churchyard?
Helped by a new age girl from school, Melissa, as well as his tough old gran, Callum learns that his extra-sensory powers come from being something called a "chime child." Turns out others like him are being hunted to extinction as supernatural forces prepare to invade the real world - and Callum is next on the hit list. Hunted is the first in a series called The Shadowing.
Look for these books and others in your local library.
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published every Wednesday. Chris Miller is with Coquitlam Public Library.
