Middle-Grade Review: 'Babysitting Nightmares: The Shadow Hand' by Kat Shepherd ~ AKA Your New Book Crush!!
Hello, Horror, Humor, and Friendship! Babysitting Nightmares: The Shadow Hand Is Your New Paranormal Book Crush.
Stranger Things meets Goosebumps in author Kat Shepherd’s otherworldly debut novel, Babysitting Nightmares: The Shadow Hand.
When they’re not in school Rebecca Chin and her three BFFs ride their bikes all around their picturesque Oregon town getting ice cream and watching horror movies together every Friday. The middle-schoolers are inseparable... until an ominous storm hits town the night Rebecca is babysitting.
Soon, Kyle, her playful, babbling baby charge begins to bite, growl and lash out. Freaky handprints, horrendous fungi, and swarming shadows take up residence in the house. With Kyle’s parents oblivious to the darkness that invaded their home, it’s up to Rebecca and her besties Tanya, Clio, and Maggie to figure out what happened the night of the storm.
And who. . . . or what is impersonating baby Kyle.
Using Clio’s rad Aunt Kawanna’s Halloween and costume shop as their headquarters, Rebecca and her friends unravel the mysteries. Lusus naturae, dark creatures not living or dead, who are exiled from the spirit world are afoot.
Horror and humor, folklore and friendship join together to create the universe of The Shadow Hand, the first book in new middle-grade series Babysitting Nightmares. Shepherd may not be a witch but with The Shadow Hand, she’s spun a story that keeps us spellbound. With an entertaining voice and witty, sharp, laugh-out-loud prose she knows how to ensnare our interest from the very first page, and keep us turning pages, eagerly taking in Rebecca and her BFFs trials and triumphs.
Shepherd’s impressive use of details and her knack for conjuring up the otherworldly scenes and creatures lurking in the shadows, let us visualize following along with the girls. The lush and plentiful descriptions keep readers locked into each moment, experiencing the pulse-pounding journey in real time. It’s an added bonus that full-page illustrations by artist Rayanne Vieira’s are scattered throughout the book and make physical what we can already see playing out so vividly in our mind.
Before this review gets any further, I gotta say one thing. Friends, leave your cover judgements at the door! The cover art may be geared towards tweens and older children but adults and teenagers can enjoy The Shadow Hand just as much as the ‘target’ audience. (Yes, I'm using air-quotes. Middle-grade for all, yo!) Middle-grade it may be, dumbed down it is not.
Soon, Kyle, her playful, babbling baby charge begins to bite, growl and lash out. Freaky handprints, horrendous fungi, and swarming shadows take up residence in the house. With Kyle’s parents oblivious to the darkness that invaded their home, it’s up to Rebecca and her besties Tanya, Clio, and Maggie to figure out what happened the night of the storm.
And who. . . . or what is impersonating baby Kyle.
Using Clio’s rad Aunt Kawanna’s Halloween and costume shop as their headquarters, Rebecca and her friends unravel the mysteries. Lusus naturae, dark creatures not living or dead, who are exiled from the spirit world are afoot.
Horror and humor, folklore and friendship join together to create the universe of The Shadow Hand, the first book in new middle-grade series Babysitting Nightmares. Shepherd may not be a witch but with The Shadow Hand, she’s spun a story that keeps us spellbound. With an entertaining voice and witty, sharp, laugh-out-loud prose she knows how to ensnare our interest from the very first page, and keep us turning pages, eagerly taking in Rebecca and her BFFs trials and triumphs.
Shepherd’s impressive use of details and her knack for conjuring up the otherworldly scenes and creatures lurking in the shadows, let us visualize following along with the girls. The lush and plentiful descriptions keep readers locked into each moment, experiencing the pulse-pounding journey in real time. It’s an added bonus that full-page illustrations by artist Rayanne Vieira’s are scattered throughout the book and make physical what we can already see playing out so vividly in our mind.
Before this review gets any further, I gotta say one thing. Friends, leave your cover judgements at the door! The cover art may be geared towards tweens and older children but adults and teenagers can enjoy The Shadow Hand just as much as the ‘target’ audience. (Yes, I'm using air-quotes. Middle-grade for all, yo!) Middle-grade it may be, dumbed down it is not.
Rebecca and her best friends are all fully fleshed out girls. They have their own voices, personalities, motivations, and talents. Each is able to stand up on their own but still manage to be a vital part of the mission. Three of the four main characters are girls of color- they’re both visibly depicted that way on the front cover and distinctly described as such in the text. But their otherness isn’t focused on. It’s not the point of the story. Yes, their race and ethnicity are essential parts of each of the girls, but it’s carefully woven into their characters and embedded into the story in a way that enriches it, not distracts from the plot. Shepherd is able to convince us of the tight bond between the foursome in just under 200 pages. A multi-friend centered story as short as The Shadow Hand that also manages to have a plot that’s so convincingly supernatural is no easy feat. The bravery and courage shown by the girls, daring to take on the darkness in the name of love and friendship is exactly the kind of story I love to see being told. If I had a daughter or niece or a friend who had one, The Shadow Hand is a book I would be thrilled to give said girl as a gift.
All said, Babysitting Nightmares: The Shadow Hand is a supernatural slam dunk. Weaving fairy folklore and heavy doses of horror into a modern day tween’s ordinary world Kat Shepherd has launched a brilliant new series populated by brave girls willing to take on the darkness and fight back. Beginning with this debut novel Shepherd fashioned together a page-turner sure to please paranormal and horror fans of all ages.
Highly Recommended.
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