The Hollow Boy (Lockwood & Co. #3)

by Jonathan Stroud (Author)

The Hollow Boy (Lockwood & Co. #3)
Reading Level: 6th − 7th Grade
Series: Lockwood & Co.
As a massive outbreak of supernatural Visitors baffles Scotland Yard and causes protests throughout London, Lockwood & Co. continue to demonstrate their effectiveness in exterminating spirits. Anthony Lockwood is dashing, George insightful, and Lucy dynamic, while the skull in the jar utters sardonic advice from the sidelines. There is a new spirit of openness in the team now that Lockwood has shared some of his childhood secrets, and Lucy is feeling more and more as if her true home is at Portland Row. It comes as a great shock, then, when Lockwood and George introduce her to an annoyingly perky and hyper-efficient new assistant, Holly Munro.

Meanwhile, there are reports of many new hauntings, including a house where bloody footprints are appearing, and a department store full of strange sounds and shadowy figures. But ghosts seem to be the least of Lockwood & Co.'s concerns when assassins attack during a carnival in the center of the city. Can the team get past their personal issues to save the day on all fronts, or will bad feelings attract yet more trouble?

Danger abounds, tensions escalate, and new loyalties form in this third delightfully terrifying adventure in the critically acclaimed Lockwood & Co. series. 

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ALA/Booklist

Starred Review
"Stroud writes with a fine ear for dialog, a wry sense of humor, and a knack for describing haunted places. Creating tension that ebbs and flows, he slowly builds the dramatic narrative to a resounding crescendo, and he makes the quieter scenes that follow just as compelling." -- Booklist (starred review)

School Library Journal

Starred Review

Gr 5-8--As in the previous volumes, The Screaming Staircase (2013) and The Whispering Skull (2014, both Disney-Hyperion), the latest escapades of Lockwood and Co., a ghost-hunting agency staffed by the crack team of Anthony Lockwood, George Cubbins, and Lucy Carlyle, start with a hair-raising scene of murder, mayhem, and ghostly apparitions. Narrator Lucy finds herself on shaky ground as her ability to speak to ghosts grows ever more powerful and more dangerous, while changes to the agency in the form of a tidy, Type A assistant named Holly Munroe seem to spell doom for Lucy's future with the company. Meanwhile, The Problem grows exponentially worse and a fading, famous department store holds more horrors than Lucy has ever seen. A series of disturbing discoveries, building on revelations in the earlier books, make it clear that there is a more malevolent human force than The Problem at work in London, and Lucy, George, and Lockwood are drawing ever closer to its source. As always, the descriptions of the hauntings are genuinely frightening, especially that of a spindly, humanoid creature that crawls on all fours and whispers Lucy's name. VERDICT. Fans of the series will anxiously await Lockwood and Co.'s spine-tingling adventures in the next installment.--Elisabeth Gattullo Marrocolla, Darien Library, CT

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

PRAISE FOR THE WHISPERING SKULL

*"In this sequel to The Screaming Staircase (2013), Stroud delivers another riveting narrative in which the three young psychic investigators deal with malevolent supernatural forces in an alternate London. Stroud writes with a fine ear for dialog, a wry sense of humor, and a knack for describing haunted places. Creating tension that ebbs and flows, he slowly builds the dramatic narrative to a resounding crescendo, and he makes the quieter scenes that follow just as compelling. The second entry in the Lockwood & Company series, this imaginative adventure features one of the most hair-raising chase scenes in children's friction. At the book's end, when the enigmatic Anthony Lockwood reveals a chilling secret, readers can only hope that more sequels are in the offing."—Booklist (starred review)
Jonathan Stroud
Jonathan Stroud (www.jonathanstroud.com) is the author of four previous books in the Lockwood & Co. series as well as the New York Times bestselling Bartimaeus books, and the stand-alone titles Heroes of the Valley, The Leap, The Last Siege, and Buried Fire. He lives in England with his wife and three children.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781484711897
Lexile Measure
710
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date
August 16, 2016
Series
Lockwood & Co.
BISAC categories
JUV037000 - Juvenile Fiction | Fantasy & Magic
JUV028000 - Juvenile Fiction | Mysteries, Espionage, & Detective Stories
JUV018000 - Juvenile Fiction | Horror
Library of Congress categories
Mystery and detective stories
Detective and mystery stories
Ghosts
Ghost stories
Detective and mystery fiction
London (England)
England
JUVENILE FICTION / Mysteries & Detective Stor
Supernatural
Paranormal fiction
JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic
JUVENILE FICTION / Horror & Ghost Stories

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