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Titles in Order of Publication:
 Book #1: MY HAUNTED HOUSE
by Angie Sage
illustrated by Jimmy Pickering
Katherine Tegen Books
ISBN: 0060774819
Ages 7-10
144 pages
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Araminta Spookie loves the fluttery feel of bat wings, the damp chill of secret passageways and the clanking of chains in dark dungeons. It's a good thing she lives in Spookie House, a haunted mansion with bats, secrets and clanking in abundance. If only Aunt Tabby were half as fond of those things as Araminta. Unfortunately, she's always complaining that Spookie House is too big and too difficult to keep clean. After a particularly tricky wrestling match with the boiler, one that leaves Aunt Tabby dressed in soot from head to toe, she's had enough. Spookie House is up for sale.
Araminta isn't about to watch her beloved house sold out from under her. She makes sure future buyers know that Spookie House is haunted, whether that means adding "Haunted" on the "House for Sale" sign, or something more subtle like dropping green goo all over the real estate agent. But who knew so many people would want to live in a haunted, gooey house? Araminta needs to come up with a better plan --- and maybe some allies, too. Enter her Secret Passage Kit, a hidden tunnel under the stairs, and even a couple of ghosts! Araminta has known Sir Horace for years but always as a crummy old suit of armor. What a surprise to find out he's actually a 500-year-old ghost! And he also has a ghost boy companion, one just about Araminta's size. Edmund talks funny and has a weird sense of humor, but Araminta likes him anyway.
Can Araminta convince Sir Horace and Edmund to help her campaign to keep Spookie House in the family? Surely the interested folks who are arriving will be scared off by a little clanking and a lot of scary voices. If not, Araminta may have to take matters into her own hands --- and launch Araminta's Awful Ambush!
MY HAUNTED HOUSE is both a madcap adventure and a creepy tale of ghosts, spooks and specters. The reader is never quite sure whether to be scared or to laugh out loud. Set in rural England, the surrounding landscape does a great job of infusing the book with a haunted quality. Even better, author Angie Sage channels Araminta's dry, funny voice and presents a story that sometimes challenges her main character's view of things, with hilarious results.
Readers who enjoyed Septimus Heap will fall in love with Sage's new series!
--- Reviewed by Paula Jolin
 Book #2: THE SWORD IN THE GROTTO
by Angie Sage
illustrated by Jimmy Pickering
Katherine Tegen Books
ISBN: 0060774843
Ages 7-10
160 pages
• Read an Excerpt
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Just because Araminta has a new best friend, a couple of long-lost ghosts and a way to keep Aunt Tabby out of her hair doesn't mean that everything's perfect. It's pretty traumatic when Uncle Drac falls out of the bat turret and lands in a dozen feet of bat poo. Worse, guess who has to dig him out? The good news is that it looks like nasty Big Bat may have been, er, squished in the process. The bad news is that Uncle Drac won't rest --- or let anyone else rest --- until Big Bat is found. And guess who the lucky girl is who gets to look for him?
If a squished bat and bat poo weren't enough, Sir Horace, the ancient ghost who clanks through the hall, is looking more down and depressed every night. It doesn't take long for Araminta and Wanda (her new best friend) to ferret out the problem: Sir Horace's 500th birthday is coming up and he thinks everyone has forgotten him. But Araminta has a plan for putting that right: give Sir Horace a fantastic party and the perfect birthday present. But what do you give a ghost?
Just as she's thinking about the problem, she peers through a hole in the Spookie House wall. To her amazement, behind the wall is a small room she's never been in before --- and the only thing inside is an enormous sword. It's the perfect birthday present for Sir Horace! All she has to do is get Wanda to agree to venture a little further down the secret passageway, find the small room (also called a grotto) and snatch up the sword. Oh, yeah, and avoid any traps that might be sprung on the way.
THE SWORD IN THE GROTTO continues the hilarious antics of Araminta and her friends in the second book in this series. Angie Sage also throws in more than one heart-thumping adventure --- and rescues Araminta just when the reader is 100% sure that there's no way out. If you want to be scared out of your pants while laughing, then the Araminta Spookie series is just what you need!
--- Reviewed by Paula Jolin
 Book #3: FROGNAPPED
by Angie Sage
illustrated by Jimmy Pickering
Katherine Tegen Books
ISBN-10: 0060774878
ISBN-13: 9780060774875
Ages 7-10
208 pages
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Araminta Spookie, a detective? Well, what else can she do when Barry Wizzard's frogs go missing? Not that she misses the frogs, but Barry's gloomy face is more than she can handle. Plus, he blames her. When did she ever show a tendency to steal frogs? So she has no choice but to form the Spookie-Wizzard Detective Agency with her best friend and (now) kooky sidekick, Wanda Wizzard. (Wanda seems to thinks it's the Wizzard-Spookie Detective Agency and keeps calling Araminta the sidekick. How deluded can you get?)
They even have a suspect, Uncle Drac's nurse, who is seen carrying a large purse. After all, she could easily fit a whole circusful of frogs in a purse that large. (She doesn't, as Araminta finds out, much to her dismay, when the purse lands on her head. But she could.)
Araminta is still certain that Nurse Watson took the frogs --- and what's more, she's just as sure she knows where they're hidden: next door at Old Morris's mushroom farm. But Aunt Tabby and Wanda's mother Brenda decide to make today, of all days, a trip to the beach. No matter how grouchy Araminta acts, she can't seem to act grouchy enough to stay home. But she does manage to smuggle Spookie House ghost Sir Horace into the back of the car (quite a feat, given the awkwardness of his armor!). Luckily the mushroom farm isn't far from the beach. When they get there, Araminta and Wanda make some crazy --- but believable --- excuses and hurry over to check for frogs.
To their surprise, Old Morris has transformed his farm into Morris's Water Wonderland: anything aquatic, it's automatic, we have it. Um, yeah. Where are the jet skis? More importantly, where are the frogs? Araminta is sure they are there. But a series of surprising disasters result in Sir Horace ending up in pieces in a ditch, and Araminta and Wanda getting booted from the new water world by Morris's annoying daughter, Nosy Nora. In shame and fear, they trudge over to the beach. How will they save the frogs now and, more importantly, restore Horace under the watchful eyes of Aunt Tabby?
Luck comes to them in the form of a shark. Running for their lives with everyone else, Araminta and Wanda convince Aunt Tabby and Brenda that the only way to spend the afternoon without getting eaten is to pay the enormous entry fee to Water Wonderland. Once inside, can the Spookie-Wizzard Detective Agency find the missing ghost and frogs and bring them back to Spookie House? Or will they find themselves pickled up and put on display as the Amazing Aquagirls?
FROGNAPPED brings back favorite characters and adds some new ones in a predictably loony adventure. It's the same old Araminta --- smart, funny and eating cheese and onion chips --- haring from one madcap scene to the next. Fans of the series will gobble up this hilarious third installment.
--- Reviewed by Paula Jolin
 Book #4: VAMPIRE BRAT
by Angie Sage
illustrated by Jimmy Pickering
Katherine Tegen Books
ISBN-10: 0060774908
ISBN-13: 9780060774905
Ages 7-10
208 pages
• Click here to buy from Amazon.com
Araminta has always known that Uncle Drac was...well, strange. The man sleeps hanging from the rafters, has sharp, pointy front teeth and is involved in a love affair with a bat. But he's also sweet and lovable and never drags her off her detective work to complain about the boiler, like Aunt Tabby does.
So when his relatives show up at the door one rainy afternoon, Araminta can't believe how creepy they are. There's Uncle Drac's mother, Great Aunt Emilene. Her daughter Matilda has a black dress to her ankle, ribbons entwined with her hair, and a hat with black lace, black feathers and even a mouse on it. Actually, Matilda is not creepy at all…she’s quite cool.
Unfortunately, the third member of the set, Matilda's little brother Max, is not cool. He's short, with pale skin, black hair and extremely sharp front teeth. While Matilda goes off to college and Aunt Emilene takes a cruise, Max is set to move into Spookie House. All of Araminta's protests are useless. She and Uncle Drac have to carry up Max's coffin (I mean, suitcase, but it looks exactly like a coffin) just about a million stairs while Max sits in the kitchen charming everybody --- including Araminta's best friend, Wanda Wizzard.
The next thing you know, Aunt Tabby is going on about how Araminta could learn better manners, if she would just take a cue from Max. Wanda is whispering in corners with him, sharing her gummy bears. And no one seems to see what is as plain as the teeth in Max's head: he's a vampire. No doubt, he’s preparing to bite every single person in the house! Spookie House will become Vampire Crypt.
Not, however, if Araminta has anything to say about it. She closes her detective agency and begins to assemble the Spookie Werewolf and Vampire Tracking Kit. (It's not enough that there's a vampire in the house. She has spotted gleaming green eyes peering at her out of the dark and werewolf tracks in dusty corners of the house.) All she has to do is convince the besotted Wanda that Max is a vampire --- and that the Vampire Tracking Kit needs one more essential ingredient: a human being (aka Wanda) to act as bait.
Fans of the series will love the way Araminta's extraordinary mind works, and the clever mixture of spoof and realistic characters is always entertaining. The ending is both surprising and funny, making VAMPIRE BRAT well worth the read.
--- Reviewed by Paula Jolin
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