From the Publisher
Kids captivated by Katherine Arden's Small Spaces will find a similar blend of chilling tales, hair-raising adventures, and deeper themes here.” — Booklist
"Wonderfully shivery." — Kirkus Reviews
“A great stand-alone read that you don’t need to wait for the fall holiday to enjoy.” — School Library Journal
“An excellent choice.” — Booklist
Booklist
Kids captivated by Katherine Arden's Small Spaces will find a similar blend of chilling tales, hair-raising adventures, and deeper themes here.
Booklist
Kids captivated by Katherine Arden's Small Spaces will find a similar blend of chilling tales, hair-raising adventures, and deeper themes here.
Kirkus Reviews
2021-06-01
Sometimes the scariest thing is growing up.
Halloween-loving Esther, who is implied Ashkenazi Jewish and White, has had her bat mitzvah, which makes her an adult in religious terms, but she’s not ready to let go of trick-or-treating, even when her parents say otherwise. She’s also not ready to move on to high school or to do anything about her feelings for her best friend, Agustín, whose name may cue him as Latinx. But when the Queen of Halloween freezes their neighborhood in permanent Halloween, Esther finds herself reconsidering the value of forward momentum. Fink, of Welcome to Night Vale podcast fame, tries to do a lot with his creepy premise, but heavy-handed, meaning-laden passages—for example, digressions about neighbors as Esther and friends flee through yards chased by a villain flinging razor-bristling apples—slow the pace to a crawl and leave little for the reader to discover. Esther is joined in her fight against the Halloween Queen (who has sent the adults into a magical Dream and stolen the children) by Agustín; Korean American Christian bully Sasha; and seemingly boring, default White dentist Mr. Gabler, all of whom serve as foils for Esther’s emotional growth as she learns to see past the surface. This reads like two books uneasily combined: one about growing up and discovering people’s value and the other a horror story with a fantastic sense of place and some wonderfully shivery (and not entirely resolved) details.
Disappointingly fails to coalesce. (Horror. 11-14)