The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street

Pay with

About The Peculiar Incident On Shady Street

Review Tessa is wildly disappointed that her family has to relocate from Florida to Chicago right before the start of seventh grade. Despite the hardship of leaving sunny weather and her best friend behind, she determines to support her dad in his new job and tries to acclimate to her surroundings. Immediately after moving into their ramshackle older home, strange things begin happening. Crying is heard in the night, the house turns icy cold, and her brother's ventriloquist dummy appears to be shedding real tears. Tessa confides in a few welcoming classmates, and together they work to uncover exactly what is going on in the house on Shady Street and who, or what, is reaching out to Tessa. Their research includes fact-finding missions to the library and a graveyard, where some strange weather patterns make for a terrifying time. Balancing goose bump-inducing frights with relatable scenes of the friends navigating middle school, sibling relationships, and family issues makes the book scary but not horrific. Tessa, like her mother, is an artist and seeing events through her creative perspective adds an interesting element to the narrative. VERDICT. Give this page-turner to readers seeking a spooky thrill reminiscent of books by Mary Downing Hahn and filled with strong family relationships, budding friendships, a local history, mystery, and creepiness. (School Library Journal, August 2017) Moving during the school year is a drag, especially when it entails leaving yourfriends and the beaches of Florida for the chilly North. But Tessa's dad's new position with the Chicago SymphonyOrchestra means there's no arguing on that score. As soonas the family moves into their new (old) house, somethingmakes its presence known through cold winds, a color-changing painting, mysterious drawings in Tessa's sketchpad, and the sound of crying at night. After mentioning atschool that her house is haunted, Tessa finds herselfsurrounded by friends who want to help: Andrew, a totallycute and friendly soccer player; Nina, who's obsessed withChicago's famous cemeteries and their residents; and Nina'stwin brother, Richie, who is afraid of ghosts. As theyunravel a decades-old mystery, Tessa learns that her newcity isn't so bad after all, and that working together canresult in friendship. A perfect flashlight read, Currie's debut novel is peppered with incidents that will make thereader's skin crawl and teeth chatter.-- Jeanne Fredriksen, Booklist. A preteen overcomes fear to solve a century-old mystery.Tessa Woodward and her family have moved from warm, sunny Florida to chilly, gray Chicago. It's bad enough that she had to leave behind her best friend and beloved beach, but as soon as the white girl moves into the eerie, rambling Victorian on Shady Street, myriad unexplainable things begin to happen. Lights flicker and doors lock on their own; mysterious crying and phantom footsteps echo throughout the house in the middle of the night; perfectly executed drawings appear in artist Tessa's sketchbook; and her 4-year-old brother's perennially creepy ventriloquist dummy cries actual tears. There can be no other explanation: this house is haunted. Who, or more likely what, has targeted Tessa, and why? The terrified seventh-grader enlists her new friends--skeptic Andrew and graveyard expert Nina, both evidently white--to follow a trail of clues in order to find out what happened in the house on Shady Street all those years ago. Refreshingly, Tessa isn't an angry kid determined to make her parents' lives miserable in retaliation for uprooting her from the familiar. Instead, she resolves to make the best of things and to take her free-spirited parents' advice that she keep her eyes wide open and explore the unknown. And that she does. Shivers aplenty; just the ticket for a cold autumn night. (Paranormal mystery. 8-13) (Kirkus, July 2017) Product Description A girl unravels a centuries-old mystery after moving into a haunted house in this deliciously suspens