Read - a - thon HOUR 1

Ok. Very 1st post, for very 1st read-a-thon. My book is Araminta Spookie: My Haunted House. I should knock it out within the hour :)

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Time for the review :)

Araminta Spookie, I would say is about 7 years old and lives in an old mansion with her Aunt Tabby and Uncle Drac. She is in love with the old, spooky mansion. She has a bedroom for every day of the week - and the mansion even has 4 kitchens!! Her Aunt Tabby however, does not feel the love for the mansion. In fact she hates it - especially the boiler. Her Uncle Drac could care less and sleep upside-down in a room full of his bats.

One day Aunt Tabby calls Araminta down for breakfast and tells her that she's decided to sell the mansion, and that once it's sold they will all be moving to a nice smaller house. She is tried of always battling the boiler, and dealing with Sir Horace (the rusty knight armor that is constantly falling apart.) Araminta doesn't like the plan once bit and decides to stop at nothing in creating ways to prevent people from purchasing the house.

The following day Aunt Tabby has Araminta help her in creating a "For Sale" sign. When Aunt Tabby walks back into the house, Araminta adds "not" to the sign so that it now reads "This House is NOT for Sale". When the morning arrives Araminta is shocked to see someone at the front door ready to inspect the house for purchasing. She quickly runs out to see the sign and sees that crafty Aunt Tabby has crossed out the NOT. She decides to add a new word to the sign. She adds "haunted" so that the sign now reads "This HAUNTED House is For Sale!" She is satisfies with the new sign, because who in their right mind would buy a haunted house??! After successfully scaring away the buyer Araminta finds an old key in the foot of Sir Horace and decides that she will go exploring, hoping to find a secret passage way, or maybe even ghosts.

She finds both!! At the very bottom of her basement she finds a young boy ghost named Edmund, who doesn't seem to be that scary. When she gets him to help her, she runs into another ghost - Sir Horace. They join forces and being to plan a way to keep the house from being sold. However, when one family comes to buy the house, Araminta can't seem to scare them off! With her last awesome ambush planned - will it be enough to scare them for good?

This was a fun quick read (for adults) and I think that any young child would like this (maybe 7+). Araminta is such an explorer and loves anything that's old and creepy - or just plain scary - LIKE SPIDERS! I remember being young and always wanting to find the secret passages in any building I went too. I always hoped to find treasure or another world. Sadly I did not. It made me laugh at some spots, while cringing in others (like mentions of spiders.)

Books in this series:

1) Araminta Spookie: My Haunted House

2) Araminta Spookie: The Sword in the Grotto

3) Araminta Spookie: Frognapped

4) Araminta Spookie: Vampire Brat

5) Araminta Spookie: Ghostsitters

Araminta Spookie: My Haunted House by Angie Sage. New York (c) 2006