Frenzy

February 15, 2014
Summer camp turns deadly: fluffy, foaming, frenzied and deadly. Heath Lambert is settling in at coed Camp Harmony. He's made some friends, and with the help of new acquaintance Will, Heath avoids having to spend the summer running errands for the camp bully. Normal camp routines of horseback riding and postcard writing come to a screeching halt when the small (and not so small) woodland creatures suddenly all turn rabid. When they bite a human, purple lines spread over the victim, and they die instantly. Heath, Will and several others escape to the nearby river, since exposure to water seems to kill the animals on contact. The group decides the disease must be an airborne form of rabies, given the animals' symptoms. They travel down the river in hopes of reaching the nearest town, but the animals follow along on the riverbank, keeping the campers in sight. Can Heath and his friends survive the crazed animal attack? Lettrick's middle-grade debut is most successful during the many action scenes and in the slow reveal of certain facts about the characters. That it takes the old wives' tale that rabid animals are afraid of water and runs with it is acceptable, but the premise disintegrates at the end as the author forces events to reach his desired end. The character deaths are predictable, and the end, too tidy. Never achieves the scare it intends. (Horror. 9-12)

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June 1, 2014

Gr 6-9-What's not to love about Camp Harmony? Fourteen-year-old Heath likes the setting and activities, and he's even made friends. But the wolves are howling, the horses are skittish, and by the time the rabid porcupine goes on the attack, camp isn't so much fun anymore. Suddenly every single animal for miles around is frothing at the mouth and gunning for humans. Heath and the last remaining survivors attempt to make their way back to civilization, fighting not only the wildlife but their own demons. Among the gang are the fat kid, the bug-obsessed kid, horse-mad twins Em(ma) and Em(ily), the former bully, the little girl, and Machiavellian chess player Will Stringer, whom Heath describes as "operating on a whole different level than the rest of them, like Einstein or Batman." The pace is breathless (with a brief time-out for a swimming lesson) and the scenario plenty gory and horrifying. Heath is almost too good to be true-smart, compassionate, genuinely nice, and a natural leader-but his secret explains a lot of that, and he's not annoying about it. Readers who like their horror strewn with corpses, leavened with compassion, and rooted in reality will find this one entertaining indeed.-Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2014
Grades 6-9 Good old Camp Harmony. Horseback riding, archery, and water-skiing on the crystal-clear Dray River. But the summertime fun screeches to a halt when campers are attacked by an apparently rabid porcupine, followed by a pack of wolves, the camp horses, and, soon, every mammal in the vicinity. As the horde of animals ravages the camp, infecting bite victims with a disease that kills them almost instantly, Heath and a small group of resourceful campers take to the safety of the river to escape the deadly critters, and each character's strengths and weaknesses are revealed as the group struggles to survive. Though Lettrick's debut suffers from some clumsy language and some contrived B-movie stereotypesclich' characters (including an African American boy who dies early on in the attack); convenient plot twists; a relentless, three-digit body count; and a tidy, sunny, everything's-right-in-the-world epiloguereaders who have chewed through Goosebumps or similar titles will appreciate the gruesome terror of this Night of the Living Dead meets The Island of Dr. Moreau story in a classic summer-camp setting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)