Ghoulia and the Doomed Manor (Ghoulia #4)

The fourth book in Cantini's series finds young zombie Ghoulia visiting her undead family at Fancy Manor for the first time. Before long, the vacation is interrupted by the town planner, who posts a sign at the estate that the property is to be auctioned, since the house is uninhabited and there are no living heirs. Luckily, cousin Dilbert has the perfect solution: a back-to-life potion! After taking the potion, Auntie Witch and Ghoulia convince the town planner that they are living inhabitants of the manor, and the whole family gets in on the hijinks when he visits the house for an inspection. The extensive illustrations are the real stars of the book, and do most of the heavy lifting where setting and character development are concerned. Rendered in bold colors in a delightfully creepy Tim Burton—esque style, they appear on every page, often in double-page spreads, and include lots of small details and quirky annotations that young readers will enjoy examining closely. Unfortunately, the story itself is not as successful. It ends rather abruptly without much resolution, and the text, translated from Italian, is rather lackluster. In addition, while the number of sentences on each page is limited, some vocabulary may be challenging. Back matter includes a recipe, word search, and coloring activity. VERDICT Purchase where other books in the series are popular, or for large collections in need of humorous, spooky illustrated chapter books.—Lauren Strohecker, McKinley Elem. Sch., Elkins Park, PA