Spooky Twisties I, II, and III by Terri Bertha
Ah to be young again. No worries or responsibilities except for homework, practice, wondering if the cute classmate likes you, and the succubus that lives down the street. Nights and weekends filled with sleepovers, trips to the carnival, playing hide and seek in the cemetery, and fighting off a sentient drone incursion created by your science fair projects. Yes, a simpler time.
The Spooky Twisties series by Terri Bertha follows a group of ordinary young friends into extraordinary, spooky situations. Each book has 13 tales that are fun and fearful. Now it has been quite a long time since I have read any middle-grade fiction, probably since I was in those middle grades, so this was a bit of a stretch for me. But in a similar strain as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, I think that Spooky Twisties I, II, and III can be a great entry into the horror reading genre for the younger folks.
While these stories cover most of your scary stuff like ghosts and the creepy house at the end of the road, Bertha adds a unique twist to each story. The way she ties the stories together in each individual entry creates an overall world that a young reader can immerse themselves in. Bertha does a great job with this in the first volume and makes several callbacks to stories throughout the others. Making the connections between characters and stories is a fun way to keep the reader interested, the same way Trick R Treat did for movie watchers.
Another thing that I found interesting about the Spooky Twisties series was how the author would incorporate simple life lessons into the scary stuff. Lessons like helping one another, respecting different opinions, cooperation, and not being a complete shit. It suggests that even if you are on the road to hell driving to a family vacation, you may still want to help someone in desperate need. Now as the jaded horror-drenched adults in this genre long enough, we know that’s a one-way trip to possession, cannibalism, or worse, but let the kids learn that helping is a good thing. So, if you are looking for a way to ease your children, niece, nephew, or the neighbors’ kids into the spooky stuff, you won’t be disappointed in starting them off with the Spooky Twisties series. But if one of the kids starts acting a bit off, check the local graveyard, there may have been a twist.
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