Dread Wood is a Middle Grade horror story with some fantastic characters, twists and turns. I absolutely loved it!
First of all this book is very well written, the characters are fun to spend time with and they have a nice arc too. Obviously, this is aimed at a younger audience but its nice to see books that I know I’d have loved as much then as I do now. This reminded me of Goosebumps, which I loved as a kid – more the watching than the reading at the time since I didn’t have the series at home.
I think my favourite character in this story has to be Gus, he’s fun, punchy and he actually kind of reminds me of Zeke from Bob’s Burgers, which shows how well written it is because Bob’s Burgers is probably the one show I think really nailed portraying kids.
This book has it all, creepy caretakers, an unknown threat, that one kid who knows a bunch of stuff everyone usually thinks is boring, the overly opinionated one, the slightly stuffy one and the Gus. It’s the make up of a typical friendship group, and that’s why it works. Oh and, lets not forget, the embarrassingly ‘down with the kids’ teacher.
I don’t want to throw in too many spoilers, but I just really enjoyed this book. I’ll save the big spoiler for the end and I’ll make it obvious it’s coming up so if you don’t want to see it you can magic yourself away.
I think most kids would love this book, it’s only 294 Pages so its not too daunting to look at, the artwork on the cover and each Chapter heading is just beautiful and it’s a really fun read. I would definitely recommend this, especially to parents who like to read with their kids because this is gripping enough to pull you in aswell as the young reader in the room.
Most excitingly, after finishing this book and checking out the author on Amazon I discovered that there is a book 2! So that will definitely be appearing on the blog when it comes out in September, as well as probably some more Jennifer Killick titles because this is definitely an Author I want to shout about when it comes to this age group.
The Spoiler!
Ok, so I normally shy away from big spoilers but I really wanted to talk about this because it’s a fantastic inclusion that I have never seen before in any book or film I have ever picked up. One of the kids in this book details that they have had some health issues as an infant which resulted in them having a Stoma formed. Now, I absolutely loved this because a twelve year old having a colostomy bag is something I have never seen addressed before and it’s so important.
My Sister had a Stoma formed as part of a series of life saving surgeries she had to go through, at the age of 14, and I know it really affected her. She had always had an athletic figure and been the one who would wear tighter clothing, often having her midriff showing and generally a very outgoing girl so when she had that operation I know her confidence took a real knock. Even being two years behind her I understood the gravity of the situation and more disappointingly, she had expected it to eventually be reversed but they couldn’t and it later became permanent. This meant that the stoma she had was actually situated higher than it may otherwise have been so those low waist jeans were definitely a no-go. Now obviously, it’s not all about appearances, but for a 14 year old girl, that’s a major theme. Mostly though, I’m really happy that another person like her might pick up a book and see someone else who has gone through a similar procedure, and know that they’re not alone. Because I think she’d have really appreciated that.
The reason this was a spoiler, is that it does come up in the story and I didn’t want to take anything away from the author’s work around this since it was dealt with really well.
Rebbie Reviews
Great review!