Spooky Season Reads for Everyone!
I did a lot of reading this week and it was all spooky season all the time and it was all wonderful so prepare your wallet and/or library card. My nine year old also took several of these books for spins (some for multiple spins) so I’ll make sure to give you their perspective as well.
Hooky by Míriam Bonastre Tur (ETCH)
Originally posted in “episodes” on Webtoon, Hooky follows twins Dani and Dorian Whytte on the adventures that find them after they miss the bus to magic school (this concept sparked an hour long debate between my kiddos about how one would, in a reality where magic school existed, actually get there. 11 thought a bus was the logic choice as it was stealth; 9 threw caution to the wind and went with dragons).
Older middle grade/early YA is a difficult age to write for because kids in that cohort are in very different places vis a vis emotional and social maturity so the balance of story and coming of age bits and darkness is both fine and difficult to capture in a way that embraces the whole audience. Bonastre Tur has done it absolutely perfectly. All of the threads in Hooky are woven together in a tapestry that makes the different parts a natural whole, allowing characters to have conversations instead of “making points,” letting them move through their story arcs and figure things out on their own (yes, I know she wrote the graphic novel, you know what I mean). Are there scary bits? Sure. Do bad things happen? Yes. Unfortunately, that’s part of life. But friends, found family, and problem solving mean you come out the other side smarter, stronger, and knowing you’re worth love, loyalty, and effort.
Plus, witches, princesses, and cafés. Also dragons. 9 was well pleased.
Paranorthern and the Chaos Bunny A-Hop-Calypse by Stephanie Cooke and Mari Costa (ETCH)
Attack bunnies. Attack bunnies from another dimension.
Attack bunnies from another dimension infesting a magical community where witches and ghosts (who are just individuals from yet another dimensions who have emigrated), and wolffolx, and pumkinpeople all live together and are BFFs and LGBTQ+ friendly and work together and are generally wonderful.
Y’all, this book is so damn cute and diverse and inclusive and I love it. I love that it also acknowledged that no matter how much support a teenager has, they sometimes feel unsure, that they still have to find themselves. That the journey can still be confusing and lonely and hard but having a strong foundation to build the house on means they can take as many leaps of faith as necessary and know they’ll always land safely.
I hope my kids know that. I hope 9 saw themselves in Abby when they read it and that’s why they keep going back to it.
I’m sort of surprised they haven’t yelled at me about my pumpkin spice habit yet though.
Witches of Brooklyn: What the Hex?! by Sophie Escabasse (RandomHouse Graphic)
Have you read Witches of Brooklyn? I hope so. It’s fantastic. I’ve read it multiple times and so has 9. It still appears around the house at random intervals and is taken to many a dinner out or boring function.
This second volume, is, if anything, even better which, who knew that was possible.
Effie, wayward young witch, has settled into her life with Carlota and Selimene and she loves it. She loves learning about magic, being included in the New York coven, and her friends, Berrit and Oliver.
Something she doesn’t love so much? Berrit’s new friend, Garance, and the fact Garance seems to be taking up all of Berrit’s attention. But then it turns out…
I’m not going to tell you, that would ruin the fun.
It’s important to remember that Effie experienced a huge loss in the first book and that no matter how much her aunts love her, no matter how she’s come, no matter how much she’s grown into her life, that trauma will always be with her. Kids are resilient but that doesn’t mean they forget or that their pasts don’t affect their futures or that they’ll always know how to navigate the intersection of the two. They may not know how, or even that they need, to ask for help. It’s our job as their adults to be like Selimene and Carlota to meet them where they are.
We had a death in our family last spring and there were a lot of changes over the summer. Most of them are positive in the long run (silver linings, as it were) and I think 9 found a lot of comfort in the reminder that no matter what happens, their family is there for them the same way Effie’s family is there for her.
Also: art magic.
Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow by Christina Henry (Berkley, 9/28)
I was born in New England but I lived in Upstate New York for ten years which means my taste in horror is steeped in both New England Gothic and Washington Irving’s Dutch-influenced tales of the macabre (I mean, you’ve seen a Rembrandt, right?).
Forget the stylized, Tim Burton aesthetic. Henry harnesses humanity’s deep seated fear of the dark, the deep woods, to spirits so inhuman, one’s eyes and brains can’t even recognize them as having a shape, as being. They devour heads and hands.
They are old, old curses, dug in, part of the land, whispering, waiting to be resurrected by a word, a shudder, a half-formed fear, a forgotten dream,
When I occasionally admit to believing in ghosts, these are the ghosts I’m talking about so Horseman scared the crap out of me.
Perfection.
In conclusion, read all of these books and if the kiddos in your life enjoy the spoopy stuff, they’ll love Paranorthern and What the Hex?! Hooky has some genuinely creepy along with the spoop so use your discretion. Horseman is neither for the children nor the squeamish. CW: decapitation, abduction, murder, animal death, attempted sexual assault, transphobia
*Though it doesn’t fit the theme, I also read Given Vol. 6 by Kizu Natsuki this week which was nice because I have been missing these disaster punks. This arc appears to be shifting back to focus on Uenoyama and Mafuyu with the very interesting twist of Uenoyama playing with both Given and a second band. Fronted by Hiragi, Mafuyu’s old friend, in a band once led by Mafuyu’s first boyfriend (which, if you’ve read previous volumes you know is fraught). There’s also the matter of Given being offered a record deal and Mafuyu needing to “think about it.” And Akihiko popping up somewhere is very much not supposed to be and I swear if he hurts my sweet ponytail son again… (I don’t care what his hair looks like, he will always be my sweet ponytail son). Ugh, now I have to wait until January for Vol. 7, this is torture.