Wednesday, March 28, 2012

March Mother Daughter Book Club -- All the Lovely Bad Ones

All the Lovely Bad Ones
My enjoyment rating: 3 of 5 stars
Daisy Daughter rating:  4 of 5 stars
Book source:  Public library
Genre:  Juvenile fiction

Corey and her brother, Travis, are spending the summer at their Grandmother’s Inn in Vermont. With a history of ghost sightings, Corey and Travis are determined to do their part in adding to the Inn’s spooky reputation by staging their own ghostly apparitions. What they don’t realize is their antics will awaken a vast community of dormant spirits and unleash the very evil, Miss Ada.

All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn, was our Mother/Daughter book club selection for March.

This was surprisingly eerie! I started it one night, after the kids were in bed, and my husband out of town, only to realize, that I was a bit uncomfortable reading about a haunted Inn. I was even more surprised that my daughter FINISHED it and liked it, in spite of its supernatural setting.

The tale of the Inn being a former “work farm” for orphans, operated by two ruthless caretakers, was clever and authentic. And that the orphans died at the hands of their tormentors was equally sad.

Then ending was quite chilling as well.

For a juvenile work of fiction – it gave me the shivers!

All the girls loved it. It was a great discussion about ghosts, whether they’d ever seen one, whether they believed in them or not, would they stay in a haunted house or not – all very interesting questions and answers.

Next book selection:

April: Mackenzie Blue: Friends Forever? by Tina Wells

Friends Forever? (Mackenzie Blue Series #3)

May: Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine (I read this a month ago and LOVED it!)

The Lions of Little Rock

1 comment:

Julie said...

Since doing more read-togethers with Bebe Boy James now that he's in middle readers, I'm totally surprised at how much I myself end up actually enjoying the story! great review!