Nightmares! (Nightmares! #1)
by Jason Segel (Author) Karl Kwasny (Illustrator)
The hilariously frightening, middle-grade novel Nightmares! is a Texas Bluebonnet nominee and the first book in a trilogy about a boy named Charlie and a group of kids who must face their fears to save their town. Charlie Laird has several problems.
1. His dad married a woman he is sure moonlights as a witch.
2. He had to move into her purple mansion--the creepiest place in Cypress Creek.
3. He can't remember the last time sleeping wasn't a nightmarish prospect. Like even a nap.
What Charlie doesn't know is that his problems are about to get a whole lot more real. Nightmares can ruin a good night's sleep, but when they start slipping out of your dreams and into the waking world . . . well, that's something only Charlie can face.
And he's going to need all the help he can get, or it might just be lights-out for Charlie Laird. For good.
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Kirkus
Sweet, charming and imaginative: a promising launch.
School Library Journal
Gr 4-6—Eleven-year-old Charlie Laird is absolutely convinced that his stepmother Charlotte is a witch. She dresses funny, serves seriously strange food (kale pancakes), and runs a store called Hazel's Herbarium. Charlie's dad, little brother, and friends all like Charlotte and think Charlie's still grieving for his mom. He's also suffering from terrible nightmares, and living in Charlotte's crazy purple mansion isn't helping. The evil witch who stars in those nightmares threatens to follow the protagonist into the real world and kidnap his brother. Instead, he is tricked into the Nightmare World, peopled with monsters and madness: gorgons, goblins, crazy clowns, scary bunnies, tests filled with gibberish, and the monomaniacal President Fear (who also inhabits the real world as the truly terrifying Principal Stearns). But all is not what it seems, and some of the scariest creatures turn out to be sympathetic—or even allies. There are lessons to be learned about facing fears and uncovering the real enemy in this tale. Pals Alfie, Rocco, and Paige are interesting and fairly three-dimensional; most of the adults (with the exceptions of Fear/Stearns and Charlotte) are merely background. The fear is as much psychological as anything, and there's humor and a fairly high ick-factor, but relatively little violence. A good choice for elementary-aged scare-seekers.—Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.Publishers Weekly
Review quotes
JUV001000 - Juvenile Fiction | Action & Adventure
JUV010000 - Juvenile Fiction | Bedtime & Dreams
JUV018000 - Juvenile Fiction | Horror
