Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk

January 1, 2012
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades. This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: "Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie's eye fell off and rolled across the floor." The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds' drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald's feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows "strong hearts and minds," as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value. A playful salute to those who (kind of…well, not really) like things that go bump in the night. (Fiction. 5-8)

(COPYRIGHT (2012) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2012
Grades K-3 Gross, creepy, and hilarious, the latest simple chapter book about the young, mischievous grade-schooler Stink has even parents, teachers, and other grown-ups joining in the nonsense as they all celebrate the joy of reading. Guts, brains, and eyeballs are everywhere, even in the school vomiteria, which serves scrambled brains and freshly squeezed eyeball juice. Kids will love the gruesome wordplay, and the digital artwork extends the uproar with spooky shadows like giant cobwebs and body parts, while zombies in school uniforms lurch down Main Street. Perfect for Halloween, this will make fun reading all year round.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2012
Stink's school is working to log one million reading hours the same week the new "Nightmare on Zombie Street" book is released. Stink and Webster try to raise money to buy the book while enjoying zombie-themed activities. Sibling rivalry, school antics, and friendship drive the story; accompanying black-and-white cartoons include wacky information such as how to "zombify yourself."

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)