Welcome back to the Haunted Library!
I've got a bit of an oddity today, Halloween Horror by Gina Clemen. It seems
to be written to aid those learning English.
The story follows teenagers in Salem that have a Halloween party in an old,
abandoned house and have a run in with the ghost of a Salem witch. After each
chapter, there are some reading comprehension exercises.
As an introductory reading book, I suppose it's a decent spooky Halloween
story. It does have a couple parts that might be a little intense for kids. I
do have questions for the parents that let their young teens have a Halloween
party in an abandoned house until midnight.The kids aren't even sneaking out to do it!
As someone that's close to Salem and knows a little about the witch hysteria,
the book is not historically accurate. Which, okay, it's fiction but it
portrays the victims as evil witches. There are descendants of the victims
living in and around Salem to this day. They would most likely not be happy
with this book. Granted none of the names in the book are the names of the
actual victims so I have to give credit for that. It also mentions there were
20 hangings. In reality, there were 19 hangings and one person was pressed to
death. But again, it's fiction.
You can view/download a copy of the book by clicking the library card. The
original copy I found online did not have the Japanese (?) text so the book
seemed more like it was aimed at young children.
I'm presuming this is the audio CD that came with the book, minus the
educational bits. It's a full cast audio type of thing with sound effects and
music. For some reason, the last chapter is a completely different narrator
and there are no additional voices, music or sound effects.
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Wow. Better than Hooked on Phonics!
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