Amicus Arcane: Little is known about the dearly departed Amicus
Arcane, save for his love of books. As the mansion librarian, both
in this life and the afterlife, Amicus has delighted in all forms
of the written word. However, this librarian's favorite tales are
those of terror and suspense. After all, there is nothing better to
ease a restless spirit than a frighteningly good ghost story.
John Esposito: When John Esposito met Amicus Arcane on a midnight
stroll through New Orleans Square, he was so haunted by the
librarian's tales that he decided to transcribe them for posterity.
John has worked in both film and television, on projects such as
R.L. Stan's The Haunting Hour, Teen Titans, and the webisodes for
The Walking Dead, for which he won consecutive Writer's Guide
Awards. John lives in New York with his wife and children, and
still visits with Amicus from time to time.
Kelley Jones: For the illustrations accompanying his terrifying tales, Amicus Arcane approached Kelley Jones, an artist with a scary amount of talent. Kelley has worked for every major comic book publisher but is best known for his definitive work on Batman for DC Comics. Kelley lives in Northern California with his wife and children and hears from Amicus every October 31st, whether he wants to or not.
Gr 4-7 Middle schoolers Willa, Tim, Noah, and Steve bond over their
love of horror and form The Fearsome Foursome, their storytelling
club. They meet weekly to share tales of ghosts and ghouls. One
day, their headquarters gets demolished in a freakish storm. In the
wreckage, the quartet find four fancy invitations to an address on
the other side of town. Intrigued, they find it's a Gothic mansion,
which seems deserted except for the librarian, who is the keeper of
all scary stories. It turns out the librarian has a story to read
about each of them, and he insists they will be dying to find out
how these tales end. This is the first in a new series based on the
Disney theme park ride the Haunted Mansion. The selections are
gruesome-some include rotting corpses-but are not too frightening
for most middle grade readers. VERDICT An excellent addition for
freshening up scary stories collections; hand this to fans who have
graduated from "Goosebumps" or are looking for a new scare.--School
Library Journal, Beth Cuddy, Seward Elementary School, NY
Middle-graders Willa, Tim, Noah, and Steve, the titular Fearsome
Foursome, share a love of scary stories, so when they receive a
mysterious invitation to meet in a haunted mansion on the other
side of town, there's no doubt that the friends will be going. The
house is a little unnerving, sure, with ravens cawing overhead, a
gothic fa ade, even a pet cemetery to complete the picture, but the
kids shrug off the obvious and most likely manufactured forbidding
atmosphere; inside, they're mostly skeptical and only slightly
frightened when they meet the house's skeletal-like librarian.
After betting him that he can't possibly come up with a story that
actually scares the group, they grow increasingly terrified as he
tells the story of each kid's demise. But of course, it's all fun
and games, right? Right? The librarian acts as the book's cheeky
(and creepy) narrator, inserting humorous asides that poke fun at
typical horror-story tropes. These get old pretty quickly, but the
stories themselves are scary on an R. L. Stine level, with just the
right number of chills and the right amount of gore, and the
episodic nature of the tales makes the book accessible as well as
appealing. This is right up the alley of reluctant readers who like
a good thrill but not a hefty page count, and it's certainly fodder
for campfire storytelling.--Bulletin of the Center for Children's
Books, KQG
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