by Juliana Brandt (Author)
Haunted Mansion meets the ultimate escape room in this tense and twisty middle grade horror following four kids who must beat a series of games to make it out of a haunted house.
The creepiest place in Barret Eloise's small town is the abandoned Raithfield Manor, a decrepit house surrounded by rumors of ghosts and kids going missing. So she certainly never planned on stepping foot inside. But when her history teacher gives her a group project to research a local landmark, the manor is the location her group chooses. Determined to ace the project and fix her awkward first impression on her assigned partners--which include her former friend Helena, smart and confident Wayne, and school basketball star Ridge--Barret Eloise isn't about to let some tall tales scare her off.
When the kids first enter the house, it seems to be nothing more than an empty building. But when the sun goes down, the doors and windows lock, sealing them inside. Even worse, the room they're in transforms into an all-too-real game of The Floor is Lava. It doesn't take long for the group to realize the mansion is a maze of childhood games. Win the game and you keep moving forward, lose and you disappear. And complicating it all is a worrying revelation--they are not alone in the house.
If Barret Eloise wants to make it home, she and her dysfunctional group are going to have to learn to work together quickly.
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Gr 4-8--Raithfield Manor has long stood abandoned and stories of its being haunted have lasted just as long, but Barret Eloise doesn't believe in ghosts. That is, until she decides to research it for a group project on town history. Barret Eloise and her three classmates end up trapped inside the manor by a ghost intent on playing children's games, and if they lose, they disappear. Most frightening of all: the children may not be alone in the house. This is a fun horror novel with just the right amount of spooky for kids wanting to dip their toes into the genre. The stakes are low for the protagonists, making this a relatively safe ghost story for even the most apprehensive readers. It also contains messaging that one doesn't need to be perfect to be happy, and that, in fact, perfection can be lonely. Most characters read white; one of Barret Eloise's group mates is Black. VERDICT Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, but make it horror; this title is sure to be a hit with middle grade readers.--Mariah Smitala
Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
[Barret Eloise's] relationship with Helena offers meaningful representation of fraught tween friendships, and the connections among the four classmates are special in their own right.