From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8-Jacques offers six original ghost stories to follow up on Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales (Putnam, 1991). The title story is more grotesque than scary, and the ghost in "A Smile and a Wave" is inexplicably evil, existing only to scare the main character into wearing her detested coat. The most satisfying selections are "Miggy Mags and the Malabar Sailor," in which a mongoose champions a young girl against her abusive uncle, and "Rosie's Pet," a preadolescent werewolf love story. The heavy northern English dialect used in the tellings would work well in an audio book, but may deter some readers. While this is an acceptable addition to general collections, true fans of the scary and strange will find more satisfaction in the short-story collections by Australian writer Paul Jennings, such as Unreal! (Formac, 1992).
Farida S. Dowler, formerly at Bellevue Regional Library, WACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Gr. 5-8. The author of the wildly popular Redwall books spins half a dozen wickedly imagined yarns filled with surprises and the cheerful satisfaction of seeing some thoroughly nasty villains come to grief. Some children will be reminded of Roald Dahl, but Jacques, a natural-born storyteller, is very much the master of his own material and writes tales that almost demand to be read aloud--at night, in a darkened room, by flickering candle or firelight. Although not great literature, these tales are a salutary reminder that books can be read simply for entertainment. And that is meant as high praise, indeed.
Michael CartCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
