The Protectors

March 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-A high-interest, modern-day horror series. Each story features unusual teen problems that occur in a small New England town. In Skin, Nick Barry's face starts to break out in a rash while his bones feel like living ice. An extreme anger starts to pulsate within him. With the help of friends, he slowly discovers an ancient evil possessor hiding within him. In Thaw, strange and awful things start to happen as the teens start to lose their grip on reality. After Dani's best friend, Jake, is kidnapped by an infamous thawed-out cult leader, they both enter an alternate, yet dangerous reality that might cost them their lives. In The Protectors, Luke's angry stepfather works as a mortician, while his mother conducts seances. Living in a funeral home that has its own secrets starts to take its toll on Luke when his mother dies in a car accident. Sounds of screams and rattling chains plague his dreams. Is his mother really dead? He soon discovers a secret as terrifying as he once imagined. Each short book delivers an entertaining horrific tale, leaving appreciative readers gasping for breath.-Krista Welz, North Bergen Public Library, NJ

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2010
Grades 5-8 Things arent exactly going well for 16-year-old Luke. Its not the work at his stepfathers funeral home that bothers himLukes been handling dead bodies since he was a kid. Its the arguments between his mother and stepfather, Sal, which peak shortly before Lukes mother is killed in a fiery car crash. Following her death, Sals moods become frightening, and Luke begins noticing signs everywhere: a release of gas from a corpse that sounds like help her; a dead womans finger seemingly pointing at a supply closet; mysterious iPod behavior; maple syrup on pancakes spelling out his mothers name. Karlssons clues are rather haphazard, and what the book gains in readability for reluctant readers, it loses in intelligibility. But the goings-on in the lonely funeral home are effectively eerie, and the details of cadaver restoration and embalming give the novel a believable (if kinda icky) edge. If your middle-graders dig this, try the other books in the Night Fall series, all of which take place in the unlucky town of Bridgewater.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2011
Luke's home life, already strained, gets worse after his mother's death. As his stepfather becomes increasingly hostile, Luke, now running the family funeral home business, must make sense of the messages he's receiving from the dead. Flat characters prevent the story from creating anything more than superficial suspense, but the spooky premise and accessible text may grab reluctant readers.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)