Creepy Kid by Caleb Roehrig

Blurb:

A hilariously creepy middle grade novel from award-winning author Caleb Roehrig!

Poe has spent his whole life wishing he could meet a ghost, but when he moves into a real-life haunted house, he discovers that communing with the other side might be a little more than he bargained for.

Twelve-year-old Edgar Alden, also known as “Poe,” has always been an outcast. Obsessed with the macabre, he’s never remotely hit it off with other kids. Only Grandma ever really understood his love for the supernatural, but when she dies and his parents move into a dilapidated house on the other side of town, things for Poe quickly go from bad to worse.
You see, Poe has a roommate. A dead one. A 12-year-old ghost named Violet, who’s been stuck haunting Poe’s room for longer than she can remember. Violet is territorial, kind of annoying, and tethered to the human world by her doll, Baby Jessica.

But Poe quickly discovers that Violet isn’t the only spirit haunting his house. There’s a vengeful, violent entity in his basement. And it’s up to Poe to find a way to help them both cross to the other side.

Creepy Kid is a heartfelt but page-turning exploration of grief, moving on, and finding one’s place in the world—sure to make middle grade readers laugh, cry, and wonder about the mysteries that might lie on the other side.

Review:

Poe has always been an outcast, termed the “Creepy Kid” by those around him, especially by his classmates and others his age. It only gets worse when he moves with his parents to a new home across his hometown to a decrepit house that’s falling apart. When he discovers the house he’s moved into might be haunted, and that the kids who he’s meant to have a fresh start with have already labeled him as frightening due to his newfound home, he’s determined to prove them wrong. Missing his late grandmother, who was the only person who truly loved and understood him, Poe’s plans falter when he discovers he has a roommate in his new house. A dead one, a girl named Violet who can’t remember how she died and who won’t leave him alone. Stuck haunting Poe’s bedroom, she requires his help to move on into the world that exists beyond death. But tethered to her doll, Baby Jessica, she refuses to leave. Worse, other ghosts have been popping up around Poe’s new home, and these ones are less set on annoying him and more determined to destroy him and the life he’s trying to build.

Creepy Kid is a fresh take on horror in middle grade, perfect for early readers who’re interested in exploring spooky yet immersive stories for the first time. Easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to root for, this standalone middle grade novel is one that will have new readers climbing through their young adult and adult lives as avid readers.

It was so easy to relate to Poe, who’s an outcast—but not in the traditional sense of being weird just for the sake of being weird, as is a trope seen in many novels. Rather, Poe is stuck in a position of wanting to be accepted and wanting to avoid changing his life after his grandmother dies. Attached to his deceased grandmother, his past affects his decisions and actions just as much as the present events he experiences in the novel.

Like Poe, the other characters in the novel were particularly authentic and engaging. I loved that Poe’s parents weren’t neglectful or gone or dead or evil, which is a cliché that is especially common in the middle grade fiction. Rather, they wish to support him, but fall short every time they try. It made them feel like real people, real parents, who cared strongly for their child and wanted him to succeed.

The best part of Creepy Kid was how the characters in Poe’s age group (including Poe himself) acted their age. So many middle grade novels fall into the trap of their casts acting too much like adults given their age groups, and this is something Roehrig masterfully avoids while writing an acute narrative with age-appropriate characters who are still equally as engaging as any adult fiction novel’s characters would be.

Roehrig truly has a knack for describing settings in a frightening but comprehensive way, which will make early readers’ introductions to horror through his novels a simple yet engaging transition.

I would absolutely pick up another middle grade novel by this author, and I look forward to seeing where Roehrig goes next in his writing of middle grade fiction. Creepy Kid is short, sweet, spooky, and well worth the read!