August 1, 2023
Grades 4-7 Helena Novak, known as Haunted Helena in her small coastal town, has desperately been trying to contact her grandmother, Babi, but she's not getting a reply. Yes, Babi is technically deceased, but before she passed, she taught her granddaughter a tip for talking to the dead, and Helena, concerned that something has gone wrong for her grandmother in the afterlife, ropes her best friend, Ben, into a last-ditch effort to make a connection. After spinning a spell, they are presented with a cemetery door to the land of the dead, but what starts as a seemingly simple quest to find Babi turns into a battle for a kingdom and a race to outrun a sinister, soul-sucking force known only as the Nightmare. The gripping story is terrifically eerie and atmospheric, and evocative descriptions easily transport readers to an altogether uncommon sort of underworld, one with distinct, feuding kingdoms, an intricate mythology, and creatively creepy inhabitants. A skillful mix of scary, sweet, and silly, with a deep love at its core.
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Starred review from June 15, 2023
Helena Novak, eager to reconnect with her deceased grandmother, journeys into the nightmarish world beyond the grave with best friend Ben in this middle-grade debut by acclaimed author Bennett. In Whispering Pines Cemetery, the Oregon sixth graders descend into the underworld in search of Babi, Helena's Czech paternal grandmother. What they never expected to find was a place full of unusual, ghoulish creatures. The tweens meet an alarming guide for hire named Grumbones ("Like Santa's evil skinny brother who lived alone in the California desert") who promises to help them find Babi, but they quickly learn that they don't know whom to trust. In fact, their very lives are at stake as Hereafter is roiled by a battle over its rule. Through the close friendship between Helena and Ben, the book explores middle school pressures and tensions. The sense of place is richly executed, with well-drawn creatures and characters populating this world of the dead. Helena's experiences in Hereafter reflect the grieving and desperation that humans feel for connection with their loved ones after death. Loving bonds between family members and close friends sit comfortably at the heart of this supernatural, often gruesome tale that expertly explores people's feelings of love and loss against the backdrop of an absorbing story of the nonliving. Ben has a Black dad and French Canadian mom. Original and absorbing; presents suspenseful underworld chills alongside heartfelt human emotions. (map) (Paranormal. 8-12)
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