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Book Review: Scary School #3: The Northern Frights by Derek the Ghost, illustrated by Scott M. Fisher

Scary School #3: The Northern Frights by Derek the Ghost, illustrated by Scott M. Fischer

HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2013

ISBN-13: 978-0061960987

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

There are several books in the Scary School series, and Monster Librarian has reviewed others, but this is the first one I have read myself, and it is a gem. The books are set in a school for children who are a little out of the ordinary: zombies, vampires, werewolves, and other creatures. Jason Boorhees wears a hockey mask and carries a chainsaw; Fred Kroger seems to think he is always in a dream. The teachers are pretty scary, too: King Khufu spends his lunch hour in a sarcophagus, a hydra monitors the hallways, and Mr. Acidbath creates frightening concoctions in the classroom.  Scary School also has its fair share of ordinary humans, like Charles Nukid, the main character of this book. In The Northern Frights, six human students from Scary School, including Jason, Fred, and Charles, are chosen as exchange students at the even scarier Scream Academy, located in the freezing north. Can they survive and succeed where so many other humans have failed?

The Northern Frights is not great literature. It’s sketchy in its world-building and, with a few exceptions, characters are pretty one-dimensional. It’s narrated by Derek the Ghost, a student who died during a disastrous science experiment and now haunts the school. However, I frequently forgot that the book was supposed to be written in first person, because except for occasional asides it reads like it’s written in third person. None of that really matters, though, because it’s funny, punny, fast-paced, and smart.  This is a book that parents and kids can both enjoy, reading independently or together (I hope most kids in the target age group don’t watch slasher films, but the Jason and Fred characters’ behaviors give those of us who do know the movies that something extra to appreciate).  It’s also extensively illustrated, with both full-page and in-text illustrations that complement the story. If you have a reluctant reader on your hands, or are looking for a fun read-aloud with your middle-grader, this is a perfect choice. Highly recommended for children’s collections and elementary school library media centers.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Previously reviewed:

 Scary School #1 by Derek the Ghost

 Scary School #2 : Monsters on the March by Derek the Ghost

 

Posted on June 5, 2016 by , Reply

Kaiju Lovers Are The Best: G-Fest Report

The Monster Kid chatting with a kaiju at G-Fest’s Dojo Studios

This past weekend we went to G-Fest, a Godzilla fan convention in Chicago. The Monster Kid comes by his love of monsters honestly– he inherited it from his dad. The Monster Librarian has been a kaiju lover since before I met him, and in our first apartment I couldn’t walk through our shared study without some crazy looking critter falling on me. Boxes more of them in boxes were stacked in the closet until we moved out and my mom, over his intense objections, took all of them out of their original packaging to make them fit better in the packing boxes (all collectors wince now). The monsters were packed away in boxes again when we transformed the study in our first house into a bedroom in preparation for the arrival of the Monster Kid, and when we moved to a bigger house, they were packed into a closet. But not forgotten.

When the Monster Kid was about four, Dylan pulled out a giant tub of action figures and said, “I don’t think I can count on these being collectibles anymore. I want to take them out and play with them with the kids.” I was a little wary of this as toddlers and preschoolers aren’t generally known to be gentle with their toys. But his enthusiasm was contagious. Suddenly the Lego table became a battleground for King Ghidorah, Godzilla, Mothra, and friends (if you can call them friends). It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between father and son, although, unsurprisingly to me, many of the action figures were battered or broken (Dylan always seemed taken aback). They watched all the movies, then American 1950s science fiction monster movies. The Monster Kid discovered Ultraman, and a new obsession was born. We all discovered (or rediscovered) the coolness of Ray Harryhausen and stop-motion animation. Kaiju and giant robots appeared in the Monster Kid’s drawings and stories. I still have the piece of paper on which he wrote, for the first time, “Godzilla” (the letter z is backwards). Other creatures and characters have come and gone (although Harry Potter has had some considerable staying power), but the kaiju are always there. With the release of Pacific Rim, the collecting kicked up a notch, and interest in creating stop-motion videos caught on (it’s possible that our family is the only one in town to consider Pacific Rim a family film). Before he died, Dylan was building paper-mache mountains, painting models, and going through spray paint at an alarming rate. And for the first time he decided it would be fun to go to a fan convention. He and the Monster Kid were very excited about the movie they were making (the story was never actually written down) and going to the convention. We planned to go as a family. And even though Dylan couldn’t be there with us, we went to G-Fest.

I have to say that going to G-Fest really put fandom in perspective. We went to “Dojo Studios”, where fans were filming an original kaiju movie that they had been working on for something like five years. There was a life-size spaceship cockpit made, basically, out of cardboard, styrofoam, and spray paint. I saw the prices on some of the kaiju the Monster Kid has been playing with (and breaking) which bring a whole new meaning to what it meant for Dylan to bring out his collection for the kids to play with. I saw other kids who were as obsessed as the Monster Kid. I saw a lot of fathers and sons getting excited– in fact, there were several pairs in the costume contest (there were also mothers and sons, and brothers and sisters). It’s possible that this is the only time they get to be around other kids who love kaiju so much. And I saw the incredible font of information that my son possesses on the movies and monsters that populate the world of Japanese fantasy film.

I want to thank the organizers of G-Fest for making it possible for us to come this year, the fans I encountered who were pleasant, generous, and compassionate, and my non-fan friends who gave up vacation time so we could go. Kaiju lovers, and their friends and families, really are the best.

 

 

 

Posted on July 15, 2014 by , Reply

Monster Kid Request: The Hunt for “Fearsome Critters”

         

 

Well, his birthday is not until September but the Monster Kid came to me last night and told me what he wanted for his birthday.

Specifically, he requested a book called Fearsome Critters. 

“You remember, Mom, Dad had a copy for Monster Librarian. It had the Hodag in it.” (The Hodag?)

We looked it up on Amazon. There are some interesting books that come up on Amazon when you search the term “fearsome critters” but the only book of that name appeared to have been written many, many years ago. So, not one that we would have had sent to us for review.  I knew the book he was talking about, so I could identify the front cover.  It is not a book that appears on Amazon, or comes up at usedbooksearch.net, although the first book we found, Fearsome Critters by Henry H. Tryon, kept popping up, as well as one by Alvin Schwartz that looked pretty neat, called Kickle Snifters and Other Fearsome Critters. This, I am sure, is a children’s book, based in folklore, because that’s what Alvin Schwartz wrote (he was also the compiler for the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books).  A book that did pop up during our Amazon search, and a much more recent choice, would be Monica Farrier’s Mysterious Beasties of the Northwoods: Creatures from North American Folklore. It’s described as an illustrated field guide, but I can’t tell whether it would be a good choice for children (illustrated=interesting to look at, as far as the Monster Kid is concerned, but I have no idea if it’s age appropriate in content) I’m not sure why she substituted “mysterious beasties” for “fearsome critters”, since “fearsome critters” is clearly the term that is most widely used.

“I need the second book, Mom, The Return of The Fearsome Critters.”  Okay, more information is always good. Still nothing on Amazon, although it does look like I could get my very own baby doll “fearsome critters” T-shirt if I want to.  So back to usedbooksearch.net I go. And yes! There is a book with that title by an author named Warren S. James, at both AbeBooks.com and Biblio.com, for sale from a tiny independent bookseller in Canada, Laird Books. There’s a picture of the cover, and the cover is the one I remember. This is the book! Laird Books identifies it as a children’s book, so now I just have to figure out where in the house it has wandered off to, or snag a copy from this bookstore in Canada. Problem solved.

But what is more interesting to me than the book the Monster Kid was really asking about is that there is actually an original book titled Fearsome Critters, and it was written in 1939 by a man named Henry H. Tryon, to document the tales told by lumberjacks about the creatures that inhabited the northwoods. So “fearsome critters” aren’t just the fictional invention of one man, they’re part of an entire tradition of scary stories about creatures that might have been lurking just outside the reach of the light of the campfires. Creatures that, yes, even scared burly lumberjacks. And I discovered that you can read an illustrated copy online, at lumberwoods.com, which has all kinds of interesting information about fearsome critters, including online copies of two additional books written on the same subject:  Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by William T. Cox, (published in 1910), and  The Hodag, And Other Tales Of The Logging Camps by Luke Kearny (published in 1928) written on the same subject. Not only that, but a composer named Laurence Bitensky has actually written a musical score for wind ensemble, with a narrator, based partially on the descriptions found in Tryon’s book! You can listen to it here.

So there. Campfire stories to give you the creeps don’t have to come from urban legend. There is a tradition of frightening American folklore built right in to not just the present, but the past. Then, as now, there was plenty to be afraid of in the dark. Remember that the next time you pitch a tent in the woods as the sun is going down.

Or, instead, you could turn the pages of one of these guides in the comfort of your home, with your monster-loving kid sitting, mesmerized by the habits of the Hodag, right beside you.

 

 

 

Posted on July 5, 2014 by , 2 comments
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