Thursday, July 26, 2007

The Holloween Goblin (Pixie Tricks #4) by Tracey West

The 13 Words!: Pixie Tricks indeed, this book tricked me into believing it was about Halloween.


The Creature from the Back Cover!: "Fourteen fairies have escaped from their world. Now they're causing trouble in out world! It's up to a girl named Violet and a fairy named Sprite to trick them all and send them back home. Who will they trick next? A spooky goblin is haunting Violet's town, and the pixie Buttercup is giving everyone a case of the hiccups. Can Violet and Sprite stop the pranksters, or are they in for double trouble?"

The Facts that Attacked Mars!: The Halloween Goblin is book four in the Pixie Tricks series by Tracey West, published in 2000. The entire series ran from 2000-2001 and consisted of eight books. The series was published in the US by Scholastic.
Tracey West is also the author of numerous Scholastic series including Scream Shop.

The Monster Speaks!: So, I've never liked fairies, sprites, pixies, brownies, whatever you want to call them. I'm almost positive this stems from my mothers supreme hatred towards Peter Pan and especially Tinkerbelle.
Anyway, I thought this might be ok since it says Halloween right on the cover. I was wrong. The book takes place weeks before Halloween. There is no trick-or-treating, no costumes (well there is a guy in a creepy bunny suit), no candy.
The Halloween in the title is a reference to Bogey Bill, the cute little guy sitting on the pumpkin in the cover scan. (He kind of reminds me of a low-rent Nosferatu)
You see, Bogey Bill loves to scare people and wishes everyday was Halloween. I'm not sure why the author chose to not have the book take place on Halloween, or at least the day before while the characters were preparing for the holiday. Bogey Bill's pranks could have had a heightened effect on children already a little creeped out by the holiday.
And then there is a thing about hiccups and Buttercup another fairy thing, and then some tricking and all is well until the next book.
All in all, the entire thing felt like a fluffy Artemis Fowl mixed with an even fluffier Spiderwick.


What Lurks Between These Covers?

The Marvels!:

Each book comes with stickers.

The Horror!:
  • it's not about Halloween
  • enough said

4 comments:

Simply Bananas said...

Cool Site

Anonymous said...

this is a great post, and a cool book

ErinPaperbackstash said...

You have to love books that come with stickers.

Constance Parker said...

The bunny suit creeped me out. Sad that it's not really about Halloween!