Starred review from May 21, 2012
Dead men may tell no tales, but dead teenagers do. In this clever collection of ghost stories, 16-year-old Mike Kowalski discovers an abandoned cemetery for teenagers where nine 15- to 17-year-old ghosts tell him how they died. The stories span 100-odd years and give a colorful survey of Chicago through the decades and across classes (“Back in those days, Chicago was lousy with funeral homes, what with all them gangsters running around”). Fleming has been rightly praised for her children’s nonfiction (Amelia Lost; The Great and Only Barnum), and underneath this group of chill-inducing tales lays a wealth of detail about Chicago’s historical immigrant communities, criminal underbelly, the 1893 World’s Fair, and more. (Sneaky!) They also span horror subgenres that include campy ’50s science fiction, gothic (“Lily,” starring a lovelorn high school student in 1999, is a faithful homage to “The Monkey’s Paw”), and wry Hitchcockian suspense; Fleming brings plenty of humor, too. The genre-flipping and varied narrative voices prevent any sense of monotony. A welcoming and well-written introduction to many styles of horror. Ages 11–14. Agent: Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency.
Starred review from May 1, 2012
Nine creepy tales told by dead teens and positively tailor-made for reading--or reading aloud--by flashlight. Fleming uses a version of "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" as a frame story and draws inspiration from several classic horror shorts, monster movies and actual locales and incidents. Within this frame, she sends a teenager into a remote cemetery where ghostly young people regale him with the ghastly circumstances of their demises. These range from being sucked into a magical mirror to being partially eaten by a mutant rubber ducky, from being brained by a falling stone gargoyle at an abandoned asylum to drowning in a car driven by a demonic hood ornament. Tasty elements include a malign monkey's paw purchased at a flea market, a spider crawling out of a corpse's mouth and a crazed florist who collects the heads of famous gangsters. Amid these, the author tucks in period details, offers one story written in the style of Edgar Allan Poe ("As I pondered the wallpaper, its patterns seemed to crawl deep inside me, revealing dark secrets... No!") and caps the collection with perceptive comments on her themes and sources. Light on explicit grue but well endowed with macabre detail and leavening dashes of humor. (Horror/short stories. 10-13)
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October 1, 2012
Gr 6-9-On a foggy Chicago night, Mike Kowalski finds himself in a forgotten graveyard dedicated to teenagers whose lives were cut short. Thinking he's going to die, he soon learns that the ghostly specters closing in on him only want to tell him how they met their demises. So begins this collection of stories, each ghost stepping up to relay his or her journey from life to death. According to the author's notes, some of the stories are loosely based on old tales, like W. W. Jacobs's "The Monkey's Paw," while others are original creations. Some are realistic and tragic, while others are steeped in fantasy and colorful embellishment. Fleming's writing style is effective as she switches from character to character, volleying from the 1800s to the present, giving each ghost its own unique voice in its own historically accurate setting. However, the execution is unsuccessful. As Mike listens to each story, he is utterly uninvolved. Each one ends repetitively with the next ghost stepping up basically saying, "You think that's bad; Just listen to my story!" trying to top the previous tale. This gets monotonous, and since Mike is so passive, readers begin to lose focus about the point of the stories. The book ends with Mike driving home late at night, having supposedly learned a big life lesson. The problem is, knowing virtually nothing about him, who's to say he needed to learn a lesson anyway? This collection feels empty; it's unfortunate that some of the more interesting tales, like Evelyn's story of living in her twin's shadow during the time of the Chicago World's Fair, weren't more fully fleshed out, with some substance and depth.-Lauren Newman, Northern Burlington County Regional Middle School, Columbus, NJ
Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 15, 2012
Grades 7-10 Late one dark night, teenage Mike Kowalski drives to a deserted cemetery to return a pair of old-fashioned saddle shoes to a grave (don't ask). Once there he is horrified to find himself surrounded by the ghosts of the many teenagers buried there, all of them, er, dying to tell him their stories. In one a wise guy uncovers an ancient curse; in another a boy enters a long-abandoned asylum for the insane; in yet another a girl encounters a hoarder's House of Usher. Set in Chicago, each of these nine eerie ghost stories, Fleming explains, contains a kernel of truth about its settinga city that, she notes, is the spookiest place I know. Thus, in one story Al Capone makes a cameo appearance, and both the cemetery featured in the frame story and the terrifying old insane asylum really do exist. It is the combination of reality and imagination that lends a certain grave-itas (!) to these nine spectral stories. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Fleming's books for young readers, be they nonfiction, novels, or picture books, are always met with much anticipation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2013
A boy driving recklessly down a country road at night narrowly avoids hitting the girl who steps out in front of his car. He takes her home--and ends up at her grave, beginning a night of spooky yarn-spinning as teenage ghosts from different eras recount their death stories. Going for thrills and chills, Fleming roots her tales firmly in time and place.
(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
September 1, 2012
A boy driving recklessly down a country road at night narrowly avoids hitting the girl who steps out in front of his car. He takes her home -- and ends up at her grave, beginning a night of spooky yarn-spinning as teenage ghosts gather to recount their death stories. The narrators include Edgar (1853-1870), whose madness led to murder; David (1943-1958), whose demise came at the hand of a "comic-book novelty"; and Lily (1982-1999), who died of a broken heart -- and a broken neck. Fleming roots her stories firmly in time and place. Each teen speaks in the jargon of his or her day, and all the stories take place in the Chicago area. References to Al Capone, the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, and various sites and local lore give the tales a real-world specificity that adds to their horror. Because the stories' outcomes aren't in doubt, the suspense comes from seeing how it all unfolds. Fleming handles her tales with a light hand, going less for complex character development and more for thrills, chills, and, as in a story about a hoarder, the occasional "eww!" susan dove lempke
(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)