Author: Angela Cervantes
Genre: horror
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The Clackity by Lora Senf
Rating:
Summary (provided by publisher): One two, the Caretaker’s coming for you. Three-four, you’ll breathe no more. Five-six, you’ll float like sticks. Seven, eight, you’ll meet your fate.
Rafael Fuentes isn’t easily scared. He loves writing ghost stories, reading scary books, and entertaining his friends with terrifying tales he creates on the spot. Rafa has come up against enough real-life scary situations that fictional hauntings seem like no big deal. Rafa’s incarcerated mom is being released from jail soon, and will be coming to live with him, his sister, and their grandparents. For the first time in a while, Rafa feels a pit of fear growing in his stomach.
To take his mind off his mom’s return, Rafa spends an evening crafting the scariest ghost story he’s ever told. As an eerie blood moon hangs in the sky, Rafa tells a group of friends about The Caretaker. The Caretaker is an evil ghost who lures unsuspecting kids into the neighborhood pond. . . and they don’t ever come out. Rafa is really proud of his latest creation, until strange things start to happen around him. With a sinking feeling, Rafa realizes the Caretaker is real. Rafa has brought the ghost to life—and only he can stop him.
My opinion: Cervantes does a clever thing here by routing the haunting through Rafa's story-telling. Since we learn what happened to the affected kids through the story he tells, we don't experience it in the moment. This creates emotional distance that keeps the narrative from becoming too scary for a young reader. With the addition of Rafa's personal, familial conflict the plot is well fleshed out and the characters are believable. For an adult reader this won't be an edge-of-your-seat read but it should go over well with horror enthusiast youngsters.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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