cover image Enter at Your Own Risk

Enter at Your Own Risk

roz Noonan, R. A. Noonan. Aladdin Paperbacks, $3.95 (144pp) ISBN 978-0-689-71863-2

This unbelievably silly novel gives the Monsterville series its lumbering launch. When Darcy learns she is failing fifth grade, she runs off into the Montana mountains in hopes of eventually reaching Idaho, where her best friend has moved. Her older cousin Sam follows her--as does Sam's sister Fiona--and, after traveling through a tunnel in a cave, the three reach Monsterville. There they encounter a tedious array of bats, mummies, vampires, werewolves, skeletons, witches--and even the Grim Reaper. Fiona frolics with a ""boy-bear"" as Darcy and Sam get trapped in a mummy's pyramid, where the floor opens up to reveal a ""sheet of writhing, hissing, tangled serpents."" Added to this unsavory brew are a human villain who plans to turn the valley into a munitions dump and a good fairy who eventually turns into a girl (""a real knockout,"" proclaims Sam). Neither scary nor funny, it reads much like a failed spoof of horror novels (or an attempt to cash in on the Goosebumps series' popularity). Due out the same month is the series' second installment, Don't Go into the Graveyard. That is very good advice. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)