Kids captivated by Katherine Arden's Small Spaces will find a similar blend of chilling tales, hair-raising adventures, and deeper themes here.” — Booklist
"Wonderfully shivery." — Kirkus Reviews
“A great stand-alone read that you don’t need to wait for the fall holiday to enjoy.” — School Library Journal
“An excellent choice.” — Booklist
Kids captivated by Katherine Arden's Small Spaces will find a similar blend of chilling tales, hair-raising adventures, and deeper themes here.
Kids captivated by Katherine Arden's Small Spaces will find a similar blend of chilling tales, hair-raising adventures, and deeper themes here.
09/03/2021
Gr 5 Up—Thirteen-year-old Esther Gold, who is Jewish, is into Halloween like other kids are into Christmas. When her parents tell her she's too old for trick-or-treating, she sneaks out with her best friend Augustin. But this is no ordinary night of trick-or-treating—the pair discover the whole town has been put under a sleeping spell except for her boring adult white male dentist neighbor and a Korean girl from her school who bullies her. The quartet is pursued by horror-style food truck drivers throwing razor blade—studded apples and robot trick-or-treaters breaking into the house, eventually discovering the Queen of Halloween has frozen the town in a permanent state of the holiday. It's up to the four of them to figure out how to fix it. Unfortunately, this title seems to be confused about its own theme. It opens with a girl who loves Halloween because Halloween is a story and she loves stories. This is conveyed by cerebral passages that seem overly sophisticated and not quite comprehensible. Then it's about a girl who's not ready to grow up: she wants to keep trick-or-treating and isn't ready for a budding romance with her best friend. The themes never really come together, and what might have been a rollicking thriller plods along at a painfully tedious pace. Additionally, the character's identities feel tacked on and are referred to mostly as needed for plot points. VERDICT A title whose themes don't quite come together in the end, yielding more trick than treat. Not recommended.—Hillary Perelyubskiy, Los Angeles P.L.
Narrator Kevin R. Free's spirited characterizations and enthusiastic pacing heighten this endearing spooky adventure. Esther Gold can't wait for this year's festivities, but she's not the only being who wants Halloween to last forever. The Queen of Halloween and her henchpeople have trapped Esther's hometown in their curse, and they will kill, enchant, and kidnap as many villagers as it takes to keep the night from ending. Free's delivery and range are commendable. He chills listeners with his cruel villains, then cheers audiences with courageous Esther, kindhearted best friend Agustín, brash enemy-turned-ally Sasha, and not-as-mundane-as-he-seems dentist, Mr. Gabler. Free blends otherworldly danger and real-life issues to stirring effect. K.S.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Narrator Kevin R. Free's spirited characterizations and enthusiastic pacing heighten this endearing spooky adventure. Esther Gold can't wait for this year's festivities, but she's not the only being who wants Halloween to last forever. The Queen of Halloween and her henchpeople have trapped Esther's hometown in their curse, and they will kill, enchant, and kidnap as many villagers as it takes to keep the night from ending. Free's delivery and range are commendable. He chills listeners with his cruel villains, then cheers audiences with courageous Esther, kindhearted best friend Agustín, brash enemy-turned-ally Sasha, and not-as-mundane-as-he-seems dentist, Mr. Gabler. Free blends otherworldly danger and real-life issues to stirring effect. K.S.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
2021-06-01
Sometimes the scariest thing is growing up.
Halloween-loving Esther, who is implied Ashkenazi Jewish and White, has had her bat mitzvah, which makes her an adult in religious terms, but she’s not ready to let go of trick-or-treating, even when her parents say otherwise. She’s also not ready to move on to high school or to do anything about her feelings for her best friend, Agustín, whose name may cue him as Latinx. But when the Queen of Halloween freezes their neighborhood in permanent Halloween, Esther finds herself reconsidering the value of forward momentum. Fink, of Welcome to Night Vale podcast fame, tries to do a lot with his creepy premise, but heavy-handed, meaning-laden passages—for example, digressions about neighbors as Esther and friends flee through yards chased by a villain flinging razor-bristling apples—slow the pace to a crawl and leave little for the reader to discover. Esther is joined in her fight against the Halloween Queen (who has sent the adults into a magical Dream and stolen the children) by Agustín; Korean American Christian bully Sasha; and seemingly boring, default White dentist Mr. Gabler, all of whom serve as foils for Esther’s emotional growth as she learns to see past the surface. This reads like two books uneasily combined: one about growing up and discovering people’s value and the other a horror story with a fantastic sense of place and some wonderfully shivery (and not entirely resolved) details.
Disappointingly fails to coalesce. (Horror. 11-14)
