Out of all the stories almost half of…

Out of all the stories, almost half of them are really really effective, fun, inventive, spooky, sad, scary. The rest range from quite good to just all right. But I can totally see sharing at least two at this year’s Halloween library story times — for 6th grade and older. It will be superbly chilling. The author manages to give different and mostly authentic voices to the characters, all telling their first person stories, from different eras. I just realized that the stories I like most are told from kids who are not despicable themselves — those who didn’t deserve their tragic fates as much. The sense of melancholy is stronger and thus my level of sympathy becomes higher. My original assessment of the frame story stands, though — it’s definitely not strong enough to hold the whole volume together and the lack of a convincing explanation of why these characters all being together is also problematic. But, I’m glad that I read it!