The Hottest Kids' Book of the Summer Is….

Librarians have a saying about books: For every book, a reader. For every reader, a book.

Our job is to help kids find that book – the book that makes him want to read more, the book that will keep her up past bedtime, reading with a flashlight under the covers.

This summer the Reading Under The Covers With A Flashlight Award goes to: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud!

I’ve been a fan of Stroud’s ever since his Bartimaeus trilogy. The Amulet of Samarkand was what Harry Potter would have been if Harry had a darker heart and a snarky, million-year-old genie. Stroud is a master at weaving thrills, chills, and humor.

His new book, The Screaming Staircase, is the first in the Lockwood and Company series. (A series! Hallelujah!)

No worries about the summer heat with this book. The Screaming Staircase will give a kid plenty of shivers – which is why I recommend it for older kids, fifth grade and up. The first chapters had me locking the doors and looking over my shoulder. The last chapters – Why does the staircase scream, Mrs. Randall? – are definitely PG-13.

What’s The Screaming Staircase about? Glad you asked. Here is the book talk (librarian speak for a synopsis/sales pitch presented to kids) for the chilliest book of the summer.

As you know, we have a Problem. It’s an epidemic. Not an epidemic like the measles, or the chicken pox, or the flu. Oh, no. Nothing that easy to fix.

The sun goes down, the ghosts come out.

We’ve got an epidemic of ghosts.

Now this would not be such a problem if these were your garden variety ghosts that hang around the graveyard moaning and sighing and rattling a few chains. The type that go pouf! with a flick of your iron tipped sword.

Oh, no. We’ve got the bad ones. The Specters. The Ghouls. The ones that want to harm the living, reaching out with their tattered fingers to give the Ghost Touch. And you know what happens if you get Ghost Touched. You turn blue and could die in two days if you don’t get to a hospital.

Of course the government is fighting it. Tons of companies have sprung up to fight the ghost epidemic. And this means lots of opportunities for kids like you. Of course! Kids are the only ones who can see ghosts. Humans lose the ability to see ghosts by the time they are about, oh, twenty or so. Because you can’t fight what you can’t see, right? So every night companies of children take to the streets along with their adult bosses to fight the ghosts.

Most companies are owned by adults, except for one small company called Lockwood and Company. It’s owned by a teenage boy named Anthony Lockwood. He has two employees: Lucy Carstairs, who is not only a savvy ghost fighter, she can also communicate with ghosts. A very dangerous gift, indeed. The team is rounded out by George Cubbins, who is the researcher. A very important job, researching the ghosts, because you can fight them better if you can understand who they used to be and what they might want. George is also in charge of making the sandwiches.

He’s not crazy about having to make the sandwiches.

And what’s the Screaming Staircase? It’s just the most haunted object in the most haunted house in all of England. Why has Lockwood and Company been hired to rid the staircase of ghosts when so many bigger companies have failed? That’s just one mystery among many in this terrific summer read.