Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story by R.L. Stine
Published by: Feiwel and Friends (an imprint of macmillan), September 13, 2016
Genre: Children’s Middle Grade Fiction, Christmas
Pages: 192
Price: $16.99
Source: borrowed from the library
From macmillan:
A funny, scary middle-grade send up of A Christmas Carol, about a boy who hates Christmas, from bestselling Goosebumps author R. L. Stine.
Rick Scroogeman hates Christmas. He can’t stand the carols and the pageants. He can’t stand the lights and the mistletoe. But what he hates the most is having to watch the old movie A Christmas Carol every year at school. Since his name is Scroogeman, all of his classmates start calling him Scrooge. And he hates being called Scrooge.
But everything starts to change when three ghosts visit him. At first, he thinks it’s a dream. But then he realizes that it might be a nightmare. A nightmare that could become real.
Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story is a mashup of holiday and horror, a perfect novel for middle grade readers who like their Christmas stories with a side of spooky.
Review: Rick Scroogeman is a twelve year-old bully. He picks on the other kids in his class and is just downright mean. He hates Christmas because December 25th is also his birthday. He is bitter that his birthday never gets celebrated. After getting revenge on his classmates and ruining the Christmas play Rick is taught a lesson. The one thing that he is afraid of is ghosts. In a retelling of the classic A Christmas Carol, Rick is visited by ghosts and taken on a journey to learn from his bad behavior.
My daughter has read several R.L. Stine books and enjoys them. The books are targeted towards older elementary and middle school readers. While this book wasn’t scary, it does feature ghosts, which may be scary to some readers.
Overall Review: Optional Read
