Author: Rebecca Leonard

ISBN: 1-934383-14-7

A good ghost story never stays on a bookshelf for long, and younger readers will find plenty of standard fright fare in the pages of this quick-reading short story: vaguely worded warnings from evasive townsfolk, a moody old man with a motive, flashlights that stop functioning at inopportune moments, and the requisite graveyard that fills with vengeful specters at the stroke of midnight.

The plot is a variation of one we’ve seen in many a movie-rental horror flick. A teenager breezes into a small town the day before Halloween and confronts elusive behavior on the part of the townsfolk he meets. Passing references are made to an All Hallow’s Eve when more than just costumed goblins took to the streets. To his own detriment, the protagonist callously dismisses the rumors as folklore, and when he later has occasion to pass through the town cemetery alone in the dark, he is unable to resist the urge to bellow a cheeky challenge to ghosts unseen. Unfortunately but expectedly, they emerge when summoned and proceed to unleash their disembodied fury on the hapless young man until he is saved from the cranky old man we’re set up in chapter three to suspect has been causing all of the town’s Fright Night troubles.

Told in the style of a fireside camp tale, this is a story perhaps best read aloud over roasted wieners and marshmallows with forest owls hooting in the distance. Patches of stilted dialogue flow more easily when spoken than when read silently, and illustrations between paragraphs tend to interfere with the pace of the story. I would also have liked to see the setting fleshed out in a bit more detail—the title implies a strong regional flavor, but switch the species names of a few trees and birds, and this story could probably take place in any backwoods town in America. The ending was also a bit unsatisfactory, with loose ends left untied and the final paragraph tilted heavily toward a sequel, which at the time of this review had not yet been penned.

The book does benefit from the inclusion of sidebar factoids and regional recipes such as hot dogs smothered in “michigan” sauce, features that boost its value as a camp-side companion. Read by the right storyteller in the right setting, this tale will be good for a goosebump or two.

The above review was contributed by: Jennifer MacKay: Jenny has published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. She is also a journals copy editor for Sage Publications and does independent consulting as a developmental book editor. Her chief writing and editing interests are in the juvenile market.