Access Today The Smoky Corridor (Haunted Mystery #3) Developed By Chris Grabenstein Compiled As EText

quick read and a very good one, I can picture kids insisting on reading "just one more chapter!" This is technically the third book in Grabenstein's Haunted Places series but wholly stands alone without a problem as evidence to this, I have not read the previous two.
The series follows a boy named Zach Jennings who can see and communicate with spirits, In this book, Zach is just entering a new private school for sixth grade, the Horace P, Pettimore school. What he doesn't know is that Captain Pettimore was a thief who stole Confederate gold during the Civil War and built the school on top of his hiding spot, waiting for decades as a spirit for his sole descendant to be draw to the school using a voodoo charm so he could inhabit their body and regain his fortune.
Things get a bit more complicated when the school's bumbling janitor finds Pettimore's secret entrance way and accidentally gets bitten by his guard zombie, Meanwhile, Zach's lovely new history teacher is acting a little funny and seems awfully eager to get Zach and his friends together alone, Also, this school is INSANELY haunted, Can Zach and the spirits work together to save the school

This is a cute paranormal mystery for a younger age set, It reads quick and is written well, It's a nice segue into the genre for younger readers,

A great book foryear olds zombies, voodoo, ghosts, boy who sees and chats with ghosts, and a dog named Zipper! Reminded me a lot of The Graveyard Book, because the ghosts all chat with the main character and help and protect him.
A neat book. Another action packed adventure! I am a big fan, These are great books to recommend to the nonreader in hopes of getting them hooked, Great story, good characters. Very enjoyable read. There are murders and at first I was troubled by the darkness they aren't violent or graphic they just are and then realized this was the same as my distress over roadrunner and coyote, when I was young.
Once I knew it was supposed to be funny, I got it and this has that same "dark silliness" no other way to describe, The bad guys are really, really bad but they always lose and satisfyingly, if unrealistically since they don't in real life, but this isn't real life which is why I think I enjoy it.
And some of the good guys are really bad and that IS pretty real,

I am enjoying this series quite a bit a surprise, but a good one, Here I am threequarters of the way through this spooky series, and I'm still enjoying it, Really, I don't read scary, and I certainly don't read multiple volumes of scary stories, But the characters here are great and the story is so engaging that I can't help myself, Sign me up for book! Even better! I love how not all ghosts are trustworthy, and that there are varying degrees of 'evil', I love that some adults are two faced and some are truly wonderful, and how Zach makes friends, I love the puzzles Malik does and figures out! You can see some foreshadowing there with the puzzles for the whole Lemoncello series, smile, Not sure how I feel about the dad suddenly being able to see ghosts too, . . but we'll wait and see how it plays out, The series doesn't disappoint! These stories with Zack and his little dog Zipper keep getting better and better! Another fun entry in this series but I can't help but think this one was more graphic than the past few.
I'm sure the boys would love it, but wonder if younger girls would get grossed out but the frequent mentioning of zombies eating human brains! Look forward to the next.
I got to see this author do a talk at the National Book Festival and the children were mesmerized by him, He was funny and personable, I can now understand why he made a living doing improv comedy in NYC, I did not like this as much as Mr, Lemoncillos Library but it was amusing, I actually enjoyed his dedication more than the actual story, This was fun and creepy! Another delightful addition to the Zack Jennings series, This one finds Zack starting at a new school, which is, OF COURSE, haunted, By several ghosts. Including a voodoo high priest, And, there are zombies.

Once again, Grabenstein has crafted a fun, fastpaced and interesting paranormal mystery for young readers, I just love reading these, I devour them. They are such a good time when you're reading and they go by so quickly, Grabenstein is delightful in this series, I love seeing Zack's character develop as he struggles with his abilities, I consistently look forward to reading these! I can't wait to read the next I have an ARC sitting at home!

One little quirk with this one it's cataloged and shelved in the young adult section here at my library, while the rest are in junior fiction.
Not sure why there is nothing more mature about this one compared to the other titles in the series, so it may just be a fluke, Regardless, I will continue to adore these as long as he continues to write them, As far as I'm concerned, Chris Grabenstein can just keep writing as many books starring Zack Jennings as he wants, amp I'll gladly keep reading them amp recommending them, especially to middlegrade kids who like their reading creepy.

Zack's new house has been repaired from the damage sustained in some earlier adventures, amp now he's going to be startingth grade at the school his dad went to.
He's hoping to make a lot of new friends amp have a fresh start but the friends he had in mind weren't dead, Unfortunately, this is one very haunted middle school, But Zack does make some new living friends to help him out in solving what has caused the awakening of a zombie on school property, as well as his beloved stepmother amp some old nonliving friends.
The scary is welltinged with humor, amp the characters are great, It's impossible not to like Zack, Recommended for kids, This is totally great book I like a good spooky ghost story,

This book had a lot of things going on, There are ghosts, zombies, school bullies, weird teachers/administration, a very enthusiastic dog, a likeyear old voodoo feud, and a very angry confederate solider sore loser, amirite.


Most of the twists were predictable from very early on, but there was one I definitely did not see coming,

I'd recommend this for middle grade readers who enjoy a spooky read or mysteries, There is some violence which might not be appropriate for much younger readers, Reason for Reading: Next in the series,

Ahh, it was such a blast sitting down with this next book about Zack Jennings, the boy who sees ghosts, Summer is over and Zack is finally starting at his new school, This Middle School has been around since the end of the Civil War when the mansion was donated as such and over the years parts have been added onto it making it a maze of hallways and classrooms.
As soon as Zack arrives, he's visited by a ghost from book one who tells him something major is going down at the school a zombie in the depths of the basement below has reawakened and Zack needs to deal with it and the evil spirit that controls it before he takes over the body of an unknown student in the school.


This has all the ingredients for a great horror story! Two ghost children fromwho died in a fire in the school under mysterious circumstances and are out for revenge, a zombie or two, ghost stories, a few gruesome deaths and children's souls in peril.
Zack has been warned that adults cannot be involved so he can't tell his stepmother, Judy, who also sees ghosts, and has been his supernatural sleuthing partner for the first two books.
Instead Zack makes friends with two loner/outcasttype kids and they are pulled into the events with Zack, But not only does Zack have to deal with the supernatural, he also has two very alive people on his trail and trying to get into the basements as well, for the original owner of the mansion is said to have stolen a sizable treasure of Confederate gold during the war and hidden it somewhere on the property.
These two baddies are related to a soldier buried in the nearby Civil War Cemetery and they know all about people who can communicate with the dead,

I really enjoyed Zack and Judy working together in the first books, so I did miss her presence in this book, but happily she does remain as a minor character.
Zack's new friends are both very interesting characters and will make a welcome addition to the cast in future books, Malik is black with a recently out of work dad and an ailing mother who needs a kidney transplant but is currently confined to a wheelchair because they have no insurance and can't afford dialysis at the moment Azalea appears to be your typical Goth girl on the outside with a morbid interest in death but she and her mom are living with an aunt because her army father is in Afghanistan I think again and she knows once he's back they'll pick up and move again like always.


This is my favourite of the first three books! A great story with interesting ghosts who have creepy backgrounds, and an evil spirit trained in the arts of voodoo and of course the zombie or two to make things a little more gruesome.
The new characters add elements to the book that is making Zack's personal world more real over the course of the three books, I rarely make definite age suggestions but I think this series will be most appreciated by's, Older teens will find it too tame and younger than ten may find it too gruesome unless they are used to that sort of thing, A great horror read for MGs, Highly recommended.

While the books are independent of each other there is not a continuing story line, Each consecutive book does contain ghostly characters met in previous books, so while not necessary, it does make it more fun to read them in order, Another funny and hartwarming ending although it was quite a draw in the beginning, With a fresh start at a new school, Zack isn't really surprised when his ghostly pal Davy shows up in his new locker, He is a bit surprised when more and more ghosts show up with dire warnings of zombies, ghosts and the lure of stolen Confederate goldand warnings not to tell any adultsfor their own safety.
Much funthough maybe not for those squeamish about zombie dining habits, :D Looking forward to more! The Smoky Corridor is actually the third book in The Haunted Places Series,

Though references are made to events that obviously occurred in previous books, The Smoky Corridor is a standalone tale and I had no problem jumping in without having read the first two books.
Nor do I feel that the first two books have been ruined by my reading the third first, so I can go back and read them as well, which I plan to.
The upside is that some of the major exposition is streamlined going into this third tale, For example, here is an excerpt from page:

Zack knew a thing or two about haunted places, because he had a special gift: He could see all sorts of dearly departed souls even the ones who popped into paintings whom other people, especially adults like his dad, could not.
He always figured it was the kind of gift that shouldve come with a gift receipt so he could take it back for something better, like athletic ability or superpowers.


The fact that our main character has a sixth sense is sort of a big deal plotwise and if this were the first book in the series I would expect Grabenstein to take some time and really establish Zack Jennings ability to chat with the dead.
There are certain obligatory scenes that go along with discovering a gift/curse like this one: Zacks first chat with a dead person, the scene where Zack freaks out and is convinced hes losing his mind, the scene where Zack accepts his ability and heads out to the graveyard to do some chatting the way Bruce Willis walks around bumping people in the crowded train station at the end of Unbreakable a Ninja favorite.
Having not yet read the first book in the series, I cant be sure what variation Grabenstein took on these obligatory scenes, but Im sure some version of them was employed.


That business is all good and well, but its a little bit like a superhero origin story, which are my least favorite superhero stories, Its kind of fun to watch Spiderman learn to wall crawl and websling, but I prefer to watch him when hes already figured all that out and is headed into a serious battle with Doc Ock.
Once the obligatory origin is taken care of, a writer can really open up a story and show us what his protagonist can do with his powers,

Good thing too, The Smoky Corridor goes to some crazy places it probably wouldnt have time for if Grabenstein had to spend a great deal of time establishing Zacks ability, Instead, that one little paragraph from pageis pretty much all we get and then Zach is off and chatting with dead people he meets, Sweet.

The Smoky Corridor is a wholly original work, I honestly cant recall reading anything just like it, There are familiar story elements throughout zombies are more or less zombie regardless of the tale at hand, but Ive never seen them arranged in quite this way.
I know I should provide some sort of plot summary, but Im afraid I cant do Grabenstein's farreaching plot much justice in a few lines, Even so, I'll give it a go: Zack Jennings has just started at a new middle school he believes to be haunted, As Zacks specialty is ghosts, there wouldnt be much of a story if it werent,

The schools founder was Horace P, Pettimore, once a Captain in the confederate armyare any former confederate army members ever the good guys Before he died, Pettimore stole a whole bunch of money from the confederate army and stashed it at the school.
He was also a voodoo master with a particular skill in creating zombies of course he was, Pettimore is still hanging around in ghost form, naturally, and hes got himself a zombie hidden within the school to protect his treasure awesome, It turns out Pettimores grand scheme is to come back to life so he can finally spend his gold, Thank goodness he kept it hidden at the school rather than investing it in the stock market or he might be stuck waiting for an economic recovery before resurrecting:

Upon his death, Pettimore donated his estate to the community as a school.
Why would such a dastartdly fellow do this So that every year a crop of fresh children will come near enough that he can inspect them until he finds the one blood relative suitable for him to take over and return from the grave.
Hes even set up voodoo charms to attract such a child:

All he needed was one very special child,

The one he had been seeking for more than a century, The one he had used a voodoo charm of magic powder, herbs, dove feathers, and a pint of his own blood to attract to this place,


A blood relative,


Just one!

Could this blood relative Pettimore so desires be our Zack Maybe yes, maybe no, But wait! There is even more plot I havent touched on, And as I see were running out of room I suppose Ill have to leave most of the plot for you to discover on your own, But there are two ghosts, the Donnely boys, who died in a smoky corridor wink, wink because they were playing with matches, Even in death they long to burn the school down and I had a good long laugh when plot elements I wont spoil them conspired to give these boys their own zombie to do their bidding.


Okay, Im signing off, Check out The Smoky Corridor, I guarantee youll have a few good laughs and you might just get a little scared, Im going to leave you with a passage of dialogue from The Smoky Corridor that made me grin from ear to ear:

", . . a voodoo zombie has recently awoken in his nearby hideyhole, I know this because, well, mine was the first corpse he feasted upon when waking, "

Zack Urped. Almost tossed his cookies.

"Sorry," said Mr, Willoughby.

"I'm okay. "

"Me too! Fortunately, being dead has one benefit: I didn't feel a thing while the beast ripped me apart
and gobbled down my brain, "

This time when he urped, Zack had to put his hand over his mouth,

To read an interview with author Chris Grabenstein or to read more book reviews, author interviews, and literary agent interviews, check out my blog at sitelinkwww.
middlegradeninja. blogspot. com.