skary childrin and the carousel of sorrow

If Towell were to be accused of using a cookie-cutter, it would be deliciously warped one. No, Towell may have humor and style, but she is hard-core set on sending some real chills her young readers’ way. Things are creepy and weird, and not solely in that quirky-charming kind of way.

And there are three peculiar girls: “Adelaide Foss has an uncanny resemblance to a werewolf, Maggie Borland is abnormally strong, and Beatrice Alfred claims to be able to see ghosts (she’s also an atrocious speller)” (jacket copy). There are the ghosts and the Wailing Room.

The Headmistress is horrid and so are most of the students. Katy Towell has certainly captured that atmospheric in her isolated community of Widowsbury and even more specifically, Madame Gertrude’s School for Girls. Mist crept low to the ground, curling around each whispering tree as if searching for something it had lost. Here the trees reached their naked limbs up and scratched at the dark sky, distortions in the bark making faces paralyzed in anguish. The park sounded miles away even if one stood exactly at the edge. The sky was actually darker in the woods. It wasn’t merely the landscape that changed. It was as if someone had drawn a line in the perpetually brown lawn of the park and said, All right. It was a very odd thing, how starkly the atmosphere changed once one crossed the border between the park and the woods. However, the nausea would come from picturing oozing vomit-covered bodies, and that crow plucking at a worm-no! a finger?! Or physical illness may result from serious anxiety, because there is something seriously creepy going on in Widowsbury and our Skary Childrin are not going to have an easy time figuring out what is going on, and even then… It came to mind near the end which is strange because Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow is far from cheesy or sappy-but it may cause nausea. Have you seen that Care Bear television episode or movie where there is a boy who is bullied and this monster takes him over and he becomes super creepy? He was so evil no one was sure the Care Stare would be enough.

In Widowsbury, an isolated village where people believe “know is good, new is bad,” three outcasts from the girls’ school join forces with a home-schooled boy to uncover and combat the evil that is making people disappear.

Skary childrin and the carousel of sorrow