Scarewaves by Trevor Henderson

Scarewaves by Trevor Henderson. Scholastic Press, 2023. 9781338829501






Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 3



Format: ARC (publication date 10/3/23)



Genre: Horror



What did you like about the book?  If you’re like Mary, you’re not too excited about leaving the big city and moving to the dusty, spooky town of Beacon Point. Set in the 1990s, the story opens with sporty Beverly walking home from soccer practice, listening to an old Walkman. A scary voice calls her from the woods and before you know it, she’s being dragged off by a bloody arm. Mary passes the field on the drive to her new house, a bedraggled Victorian with scratching sounds coming from the attic. Meanwhile, we meet a crew of other misfits, each with their own scary monster meet-ups: Lucas (farm kid) has repeated encounters with a vermin-filled scarecrow; Byron encounters a mysterious stranger; Jennifer (the babysitter) and Kyle (the brat) surprise a herd of monster deer, and so on. This gang of losers eventually decides to capture evidence of the town’s ubiquitous danger during an ill-fated and exciting sleepover. Interspersed with each kid’s story are a series of radio broadcasts from Alan Graves, reproduced as a script (with suggested sound effects) in a typewriter font. Henderson’s imaginary creatures are suitably creepy and kids who like jumpscares will enjoy Scarewaves. Scattered black-and-white illustrations (reminiscent of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ) are represented by one or two examples in the advance reader copy, but promise to be just as spine-tingling in the final version. All characters cue as White.



Anything you didn’t like about it? It took a while for the story to get going, with several gross monster encounters featuring auxiliary characters. Then everything wrapped up abruptly and anticlimactically. The radio interludes tracing the town’s unfortunate history broke up the suspense. Although they were important to the marginal plot and world-building, I ended up skimming them.



To whom would you recommend this book?  Obviously created with fans of Goosebumps and Stranger Things in mind. This quick read, with lots of spooky and gross scenes, will prove popular with upper elementary and middle school horror fans, especially given the eerie illustrations and cover art.



Who should buy this book? Middle school and public libraries



Where would you shelve it? YA fiction, horror is you genre-fy



Should we (librarians/readers) put this on the top of our “to read” piles? No



Reviewer: Susan Harari, Keefe Library, Boston Latin School, Boston, MA



Date of review: September 20, 2023