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.
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.
