Babysitting Nightmares: The Shadow Hand

June 1, 2018

Gr 3-6-Kat Shepherd draws from 1990s kid lit canon in this creepy tale of babysitting gone wrong. Middle-schooler Rebecca Chang and her friends Clio, Maggie, and Tanya love babysitting for their neighbor's infant son, Kyle. He's happy and easygoing-that is, until a power outage during a storm alters the child's personality and creates strange occurrences in his home. After consulting Clio's Aunt Kawanna, the girls are convinced that Kyle has been replaced by a changeling and they are the only ones who can return the child to his family. The story ends happily, but with the door open for another spine-tingling adventure. Clothing descriptions and scares take precedence over character development, but readers won't mind; the chills and cliff-hangers are the real attraction here. Vieira's stylized black-and-white illustrations add to the creep factor without being too graphic or frightening for younger readers, and take care to highlight the cultural diversity found in the friend group. VERDICT Fans of "Goosebumps" and the updated "Baby-Sitters' Club" graphic novels will find lots to like in this delightfully monstrous mash-up.-Katherine Barr, Cameron Village Regional Library, Raleigh, NC

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2018
Sweet, happy baby Kyle is a babysitter's dream, until the evening after a mysterious storm, when he becomes a little terror--literally!In this first book of the Babysitting Nightmares series aimed at preteens who like contemporary stories with a fright, sixth-grader Rebecca Chin finds her babysitting job grows considerably harder when her favorite baby behaves increasingly strangely. Rebecca, her three best friends, Clio, Tanya, and Maggie, and Clio's aunt follow mysterious clues and research the supernatural to conclude that Kyle has been kidnapped by the Night Queen and replaced with a changeling. Kyle's only hope is for the girls to enter the Nightmare Realm themselves to rescue him. Deliciously creepy clues, mysterious happenings, and downright harrowing monsters make for a fun and frightful break in the lives of these average girls, and a final showdown of wits and courage sets the stage for future encounters with the Night Queen. The ensemble cast of characters with diverse backgrounds and interests, including some interpersonal tension, also sets up future installments. (Rebecca's Chinese-American, Cleo's black, Tanya's brown-skinned, and Maggie's white.) Unfortunately, some of the scary fun is tempered by the sporadic, uninspired illustrations that do not do the details in the prose justice. Nevertheless, this is a fizzy option for readers interested in dipping a toe into the horror genre.Frightful (but not too frightful) fun for preteens. (Horror. 9-12)

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May 15, 2018
Grades 3-6 With an imagination that runs wild, Rebecca Chin is easily frightened?a quality her three BFFs take gleeful advantage of?but none of them is prepared for what Rebecca experiences when she babysits Kyle Dunmore. While Rebecca is putting young Kyle and his teddy bear in his crib one evening, a sudden storm erupts, leaving them in the dark. Rebecca smells rotting, moldy wood and senses something wild has entered through Kyle's window. The strange thing is that no other part of town experiences the storm. Over the coming days, the Dunmores notice changes in Kyle. He's no longer a sweet, cuddly baby; rather, he throws tantrums and is always irritable. Rebecca and her friends determine that a changeling has replaced Kyle, and only they, as kids, can rescue Kyle from the Nightmare Realm. Will the multicultural foursome succeed before time runs out? Shepherd blends realistic fiction and fantasy with an omniscient narrator to give readers a friendship story with creepy supernatural elements to enliven their imagination. Expect the girls to appear in another spooky adventure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)