WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDREN READING? Vol. 1, No. 2
August 1998
>Conjuring (little dog Brownie and giant Chocolate Man)
>Levitation (baseball cap flew around room)
>Spells (large jelly blob fills the kitchen, house is transformed
into a castle, toad is created from nothing, cherry pop comes out of the
neighbor's faucet, & ten-foot tall daisy is grown in the front yard)
>Witches (Mrs. Mullins)
Rosemary's Witch by Ann Turner. (Scholastic Inc./164 pp./BOOK CLUB EDITION/RL5) Mathilda, the witch, finds an abandoned cottage between two pines and decides to make it her home. She then goes about acquiring (stealing?) "things" to make it livable. She remembers being teased by children who called her, "Rotten," and she vows revenge against their descendants. A bit much for a children's book, the witch liked to scratch her face with branches, leaving little flecks of blood on the leaves. She is a pitiable creature, who never escaped the tragedies of her childhood. She had lived in caves, having lost her father's house long ago. She scraped the insides of dead things, even stealing dogs and horses for her purposes, practicing dark potions. Most of the book centers around a new family to the town, the Morgenthau's, and their nine year old girl, Rosemary. They moved into the witch's childhood home, and she meant to get them out. She fixes the time on the church clock but stifles its bells. Resentment to gathering people at church is mentioned, but nothing is said of Christian worship. When asked whether the destruction of the playground was as bad as the desecration of a cemetery, the family's father says, "I think that ruining the playground is worse, it's the living that matter." Whether this was meant to have any deeper religious signification is unclear. Rosemary repays the witch's misdeeds by giving her presents for her birthday, thus lifting the siege, and the witch departs. Without love and belonging, we can become twisted and malignant, like the witch; with these things, we become more fully human.
>Familiar (cat becomes an emissary for the witch)
>Levitation (witch flies around)
>Oddities (hissing hair, 150 years old, witch's foot left burned
brown spots on leaves, eyes like yellow headlights, three decapitated mice,
burn spots where witch spat)
>Premonition (suggestion that bad times are coming)
>Spells (witch's tongue seamed a torn doll, animals sickened,
cold and smelly fog in mid-July, zapped the life out of flowers, the destruction
of the playground equipment, plague of toads)
>Superstition (putting beans --spirit food-- on the doorstep
to keep ghosts and evil spirits >Telekinesis (bike drives itself
to the witch)
>Telepathy (she calls the cat from the barn, commands him to
scratch the father's ankle)
>Witches (Mathilda)
There are several lines that make me wonder if they are age appropriate: "Curling up in bed by your warm wife was almost as wonderful [as hot coffee], Johnny mused, sipping." / "I can take chemicals, you know, because I'm large [speaking about diet soda]. It's like adults drinking alcohol. The bigger you are, the more your body absorbs it." / "Other mothers were round with square bottoms. When they bent over in the supermarket, you hoped no one would see." / "He [a young boy, Ernie] was like someone on a soap opera, meeting a friend in a bar and having a conversation over white wine." / "[Mrs. Pierce] With a bosom like a shelf trussed in butcher paper . . . ."
The Witches Next Door by J. R. Black. (Random House/124 pp./$3.50/RL4.9) This is the third book in the Shadow Zone series. Trouble starts to brew with an obnoxious smell from a shed in the yard of new neighbors, the Nightingales, attracting the attention of those around them. Although they look like two nice old ladies, they are really witches, and they have come to convert a new recruit, a young girl, Jennifer. They claim that she is a special person who has access to the SHADOW ZONE and its magic. As she deals with this revelation and her potential powers, she begins to come out of her shell. Failing to make Junior Symphony, she develops the courage to tell her mother that she has been too demanding with her and has to back off. Her father agrees.
>Levitation (eggs flew back toward the kids, Abigail's violin
played in mid-air, Harold flies off to Alaska on a broom, moving the cauldron)
>Mutation (Jennifer is changed into a field mouse, Harold the
bird takes a drink and becomes a white-haired man, a little boy is recalled
having turned into a coach potato, Jennifer's mother is turned into a ram)
>Possession (Jennifer's body sometimes seems to take on a life
of its own)
>Spells (voice that calls out to Jennifer, hand materialized
from blue smoke, smoke changed colors and took on the shape of a skull
and then became a swarm of bats, Harold the talking bird, Jennifer helps
chant a spell with them to keep them from fizzling)
>Telepathy (Jennifer admits that Emma and Abigail have something
like ESP) seeing events on their television
The Substitute Creature by M. T. Coffin. (Avon Books/124 pp./$3.50/RL4.9) The first book in the Spinetinglers series, this one centers around the suspicion of Jace Morgan that his substitute teacher is something other than human. He invites his friend, Abram, to assist him in solving the mystery. Inadvertently, he sees Mr. Hiss in the men's room, with what appears to be blood on his face and hands. Returning to class for a forgotten book, Jace observes the teacher at his desk; all seems normal until he looks at his face and spies red eyes "slitted with vertical cat's eyes pupils" (p. 34). Discovering where he lives, Jace is shocked to find a bowl on the porch railing full of eyeballs. Rumor had it that he ate eyeballs. (There is a particularly revealing picture to this effect on the book's cover.) Later, Mr. Hiss introduces a friend, Ms. Seale, who teaches makeup to the class. In the parking lot, her human face is torn off and the features of a lizard are revealed. Scary? Yes, and there is a lot of suspense, too. However, it all turns out to be props for a low-budget monster film.
>No Supernatural Elements
Bug Off! by Terri Fields. (Scholastic Inc./132 pp./$2.99/RL5) The book starts off with Krista shouting over and over, "I hate my little brother!" Later, after a prank by him, she even turns this harshness against her mother, "And . . . if you can't understand why, then . . . then . . . I hate you, too!" As for the event that unleashed all this emotion, she was frightened by her brother, Tyler's, fake snake in her drawer. She throws it with all her underwear out the window. Outside, Jeff, a boy she really likes, and some others are playing ball. Obviously, this brings her much embarassment and teasing. Absent from the story is her father who we are told was killed in a car accident a few years back. Their mother has to leave on a business trip, so she hires a baby-sitter by the name of Mrs. Pickle-Nickle. The real trouble begins when Krista angrily turns to her brother and says: "I wish that you were a tiny little beetle bug, so I could step on you." He concurs, so that he might at least crawl away. You've guessed it, ala Franz Kafka, he is so transformed. It turns out to be the baby-sitter's doing, as she is an alien with pseudo-magical powers. Upset that granting their wish has not made them happy, she becomes enveloped in a yellow light and disappears. Krista becomes increasingly concerned that her brother might accidentally kill himself, as if the lifespan of bugs is really that long, anyway. Eventually, she enlists the aid of a boy who had teased her, Jason, and they try in vain to get help from the agency that sent the baby-sitter. Despite the fact that they are both in fifth grade, they are able to get a cab across town (without parental approbation). Krista's mother calls and she is all excited about the success of a business deal. Krista tells her mother, "Mom, everything is fine here." Is lying suppose to be "the most grownup thing" she has ever done. This is a questionable judgment on the part of the author. Her beetle brother weakens and is taken for dead on the kitchen table. The alien reappears, says that her whole planet has worked on a possible reversal to the spell, and an attempt is made. Ultimately, it does work and Tyler becomes a little boy again, just as his mother returns home. The alien remarks, ". . . maybe it's better if people's wishes don't always come true." In any case, Krista now realizes that she loves her brother, no matter how bad a pest he is, and makes an unexpected friend out of Jason.
>Aliens (Mrs. Pickle-Nickle)
>Matter Transference (the alien disappears to her home planet
and finally reappears)
>Metamorphosis (Tyler is transformed into a beetle bug and later
back again)
>Oddities (glowing green light)
>Magic (the appearance of a multicolored crayon from the baby-sitters
pocket similar to the one described by Tyler from second grade)
Help! I'm Trapped in the First Day of School by Todd Strasser. (Scholastic Inc./114 pp./$2.95/ RL5) Okay, it is obvious from word one that the idea of this book is stolen from the film, Groundhog Day. Indeed, an allusion is made to the movie in the first paragraph, "I'd just had the weirdest dream about a groundhog named Bill." (The film and its main actor, Bill Murray, immediately come to mind.) The author has actually worked on the novelization of three popular motion pictures, Home Alone, Home Alone 2, and Free Willy. I suppose it is hoped that the film connection will be made so as to urge young people to read the book; however, it should be noted that the film condoned pre-marital relations. This book is a sequel to Help! I'm Trapped in My Teacher's Body, another movie take-off. Jake Sherman tells his sister, "Drop dead" on page one and on the next page, "a super pain-in-the-butt PC [Politically Correct] big sister." Huh? What do kids know about this yuppie talk? His sister had died her hair black and had pierced her nose. Good gracious! He redefined PC as "Pea-brained Cretin." All of this is said by page two. While the book is written for fifth graders, he is noted as in the eighth grade and his sister is in the tenth. Is this going to be age appropriate material? Reinforcing this concern is the love interest in the story, Amber Sweeny who is termed by Alex as "hot-looking." Noticing Jake's headway with Amber, he observes, "You're unreal, dude! At this rate, you'll probably get her out to the cliff by tomorrow." We are then told that "it was the place where couples went to make out." Jake and his buddy Alex decide to become the bullies of the school, using such words about others as "dork," "dweeb," "jerk," and "chumps." Alex, who wears a diamond stud earring," calls their teacher, Ms. Rogers, the "evil witch." Mr. Dirksen, the science teacher, used to be called Mr. Dorksen, but he was made cooler after changing bodies with Jake in the first book. He has had a hair transplant. (Stressing physical appearance over moral worth and personal acceptance?) The school lunch people are shown to be derelict by giving them "really rancid meat." The list of derogatory elements goes on and on. Particularly surprising is the poor grammar as in this sentence of narration (not dialogue), "Today me and Alex were finally on the top of the heap." Tomorrow would be the first day of school all over again, and the day after that and the day after that .... Eventually, as in the movie, Jake breaks the cycle by living up to his better qualities, finding happiness in being considerate and helpful.
>Oddities (the repeating first day of school)
>Possession (the body switch referred to in the previous book)
Simon Says "Croak!"
by M.T. Coffin. (Avon Books/124 pp./$3.50/RL4.9) The sixth book in the
Spinetinglers series, it details the bizarre school experiences of Alexander
Hanifin, a new student at Curtis Elementary School in the town of Littleton.
Alexander assists the janitor in bringing up his desk from storage in the
basement. Carved into the desk is the name, Simon, an outlandish bad boy
of olden days who was punished by having to sit alone in the dark basement.
However, when they came back for him, he was gone, never to be seen again--
almost. Alexander finds troubling messages in his books and hears a voice
calling him "Thief" and threatening him. The messages disappear
when exposed to the air. He suspects that the class bully, Mick, might
be behind it all. Meanwhile, his father is working to get the old school
closed so that he can build a housing development on the land. Ultimately
he has to confront the real villain, the ghost Simon, who wants his desk
back and his home, the school, saved from the Destroyer, Alexander's Dad.
A compromise is made at the end of the story with an agreement to convert
the tiny school to a museum or library. Simon is a nasty ghost with long
fingernails and a disagreeable temperament. He causes his desktop to slam
Alexander several times in the chin and closes the lid upon his fingers.
He threatens violence to Alexander, his friend Jordan, his father, and
the janitor. Since there is no apology from Simon, the story's message
seems to be the following: if we are mean, threatening and hurting people,
we can get what we want. The actual author is Kathleen Duey.
>Ghosts (the boy Simon, we are never told how he died)
>Conversing with the Dead (Alexander, his father, and Jordan
talk with Simon)
>Telekinesis (Simon causes various debris to fly and doors to
open and close)
Check It Out-- And Die! by M. T. Coffin. (Avon Books/151 pp./$3.50/RL4.9) The fifth book in the Spinetinglers series, it chronicles the adventures of Charlie Stanton and his friends when the substitute librarian, Mrs. Gunkel, comes to their school. While the previous librarian was prejudiced against horror books, Mrs. Gunkel starts a horror reading club and even contributes her own books which were stored at her house in coffins. The young people begin to read them and disappear, right into the books. Charlie's book is knocked from the table and he reappears in the library. When five kids are found missing, he and his friends Davina Dishman and Trudy Jones go after them, facing all kinds of monsters. If they fail to get out of a book before the story ends, they must remain forever! Thousands of children have already lost their lives this way. Rescuing their five friends, they confront Mrs. Gunkel who tells them that her books are really vampires who need to be fed. Escaping her through the cemetery, the books turn to dust and she leaves town. Books mentioned in this story have some hair-raising names: Body Parts for Lunch, The Body in My Backpack, Who's Buried in the Basement?, Write My Name in Blood, The Candles of Death, Sleepover!, Rats in My Bedroom, School Trip, The Zombie Who Lives Under Our House, The Vampire Football Team, Werewolves at Summer Camp, and My Parents Are Werewolves. This last book listed is picked up by Charlie to read at the story's end; the old librarian has reconsidered her ban on such literature. Nothing is learned from the travails. All seems well at the end until Charlie begins to scratch his werewolf bite and notices that his hands have become hairy paws. The actual author is George Edward Stanley.
>Conversing with the Dead (with vampires, the skeleton children,
etc.)
>Skeletons (dead children on a school bus)
>Teleportation (into the world of the vampire books)
>Vampires (to lose the football game is to lose one's blood!)
>Werewolves (they attack the Summer Camp)
>Zombies (slow moving living dead)
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Last Updated February 6, 1998 by Fr.
Joseph Jenkins