First, this book was great, and I’m reminded of my oft-forgotten intention to find more Sleator. If you like Stine, but want a slightly older and more sci-fi bent, then you’ll love his books. I read Singularity years ago and kept an eye out for my own copy to buy ever since, which I picked up just recently. I found THE BOXES in a Shoprite used book sale-I think the money goes towards food kitchens-and immediately grabbed it. Second, I should mention that, for those […]
Childhood favorite
I’m not sure how old I was when I first read this book, but I do remember that it was a favorite. Some parts of this have stuck with me for over twenty years, influencing how I think ghost stories should work. Having been born in 1986, I still definitely feel like we 90s kids got the best ghost stories. We had a lot of authors that we still pass on to younger generations today. I’m honestly horrified when I meet a young reader-especially of […]
No, really, it’s a comedy
This one is a reread for me, but it’s been about a decade, so there were a few things I’d forgotten. Not a lot, though. I don’t know how many of you are Dean Koontz fans, but this is another one of his that is basically a normal good guy versus a supernatural evil creature. Of course, there’s the requisite side characters and side-kicks, and, in this case, a decent portrayal of first generation American angst. One thing I definitely have to say about him […]
Imagine a Studio Ghibli film as an 80s novel
The Nargun and the Stars won a Hans Christian Andersen medal, I’m assuming sometime in the seventies when it first came out. My copy is the 1988 reprint and you can really tell based on the cover. I can’t remember at all why and where I picked this up, but I’d bet it was because of the title, not the cover art. Post-reading, I am, as usual, mostly bugged by the inaccuracies. Oh well. So, based on the title, I’d have guessed this book would […]
Guess the inspiration!
I think I read this one before THE ANIMAL REBELLION, but that one was so irritating, the review was much easier. THE LOCKED ROOM wasn’t half as bad, so this may actually take some thought. I don’t remember the main character’s name at all, but she, her younger brother, and her mother have just moved across the country to live with her mother’s new husband after a whirlwind romance. The protagonist misses her father and home, but they’re actually back in her mother’s hometown, so […]
Not Animal Farm
I found a small pile of miscellaneous SHIVERS books at that Shoprite book sale, so, since I loved any horror as a kid and vaguely remembered a couple of these, I picked them up. They’re short books; this one had about 115 pages. The funny part is that after reading a couple of them, I can see where the ideas came from. The sources include fairy tales, but also, in the case of THE ANIMAL REBELLION, I can definitely see at least a couple scenes […]