Skip to main content

The Ghoul Next Door

Image
By
The Ghoul Next Door
By Cullen Bunn
Illustrated by Cat Farris
New York: HarperAlley, 2021. Comic.

11-year-old Grey is having a bad day. While taking a shortcut through the cemetery on his way to school, he trips and drops his school project -- a diorama of the cemetery -- into an open grave, where it is promptly snatched by a claw-like hand. That night, he sees the creature again as a hunched-over figure in his bedroom. Eventually, Grey decides to make contact with the creature and finds an unexpected new friend -- a ghoul named Lavinia. Grey and Lavinia become fast friends, much to the chagrin of Grey's living best friend Marshall. But things are only going to get worse. It turns out, ghouls are not supposed to become friends with "surface-dwellers," and when Marshall is taken as punishment, Grey and Lavinia must brave the Kingdom of the Dead to save his life.

This is a perfectly spooky and delightfully macabre graphic novel to start spooky season. Without ever being too scary, Cat Farris' creepy watercolor illustrations set the tone for the novel with shadowy figures and muted tones. The blend of humor and horror is masterfully handled in this graphic novel that celebrates friendships (especially unusual friendships) and slips in a dose of historical intrigue as well. Readers may want to read this one during the day time, but they for sure don't want to miss it.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Faker

By
Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...
Post a Comment
Read more