{"id":9539,"date":"2024-07-21T23:02:50","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T03:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=9539"},"modified":"2024-07-21T23:02:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T03:02:50","slug":"book-review-gravebooks-by-j-a-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-gravebooks-by-j-a-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Gravebooks by J.A. White"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

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Gravebooks<\/em> by J.A. White<\/p>\n

Katherine Tegen Books, 2022<\/p>\n

ISBN-13 \u200f : \u200e 978-0063082014<\/p>\n

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook<\/p>\n

Buy:\u00a0 Bookshop.org<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0 Amazon.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this sequel to Nightbooks, <\/em>Alex Mosher wakes up trapped in a nightmare of a strange graveyard of stories, commanded, mysteriously, by the witch Natacha (who kept him captive and died during his escape in the previous book)<\/em>, and her jackal friend Simeon. Each of Alex’s unfinished story ideas are buried in a grave.. Natacha tells Alex he needs to dig each grave up and open the coffin. Inside each coffin is a blank book. Alex has to take the book out and jump down into the grave world to finish the story. When he finishes, the book bursts into flames, but the text of the story is transferred to the world above as the grave world crumbles. Telling the story causes a flower to grow: the better the story, the more unusual the flower.<\/p>\n

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Natacha and Simeon kidnap Alex’s friend Yasmin to threaten Alex into doing his best work, but he makes a deal with them that if they leave her alone, he will write them stories every night.. Yasmin feels responsible for Alex’s situation, and seeks out another fairytale witch, Maria Goffell, doomed to cut the hair of the dead. Maria tells Yasmin\u00a0 she will need objects that represent Yasmin’s greatest fears, and Yasmin realizes she will have to return to Natacha’s apartment, where she and Alex were imprisoned in Nightbooks<\/em>. Yasmin finds items in the apartment she can use and is able to defeat Natacha, finally. Maria and Yasmin finally trap Simeon, and Alex is able to escape, resurrect his friendship with Yasmin, and defeat his writer’s block, for the price of a story read to Maria.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This had a slow start, but picked up fast, and was a great companion to Nightbooks, <\/em>which I cannot recommend enough to horror-loving middle-graders. J. A. White knows how to write nightmares.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

White also name-checks the authors from his dedication: Bradbury, Matheson, King, and Jackson are all Easter eggs in the book, making this a fun book for adults as well. It’s a great book for horror-loving parents to read with their kids. Nightbooks <\/em>was made into an excellent movie: I hope Gravebooks <\/em>gets a similar treatment.\u00a0Highly recommended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Gravebooks by J.A. White Katherine Tegen Books, 2022 ISBN-13 \u200f : \u200e 978-0063082014 Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook Buy:\u00a0 Bookshop.org\u00a0|\u00a0 Amazon.com   In this sequel to Nightbooks, Alex Mosher wakes up trapped in a nightmare of a strange graveyard of stories, commanded, mysteriously, by the witch Natacha (who kept him captive and died<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5700,645,749,2516,3980,5702,3866,5654,131,628,5701],"class_list":["post-9539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gravebooks","tag-horror-book-reviews","tag-horror-books","tag-j-a-white","tag-middle-grade-horror","tag-middle-school-horror","tag-nightbooks","tag-nightmares","tag-scary-stories","tag-witches","tag-writers-block"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9539"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10321,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9539\/revisions\/10321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}