Grandpa’s Monster Movies: Deadtime Stories
By Annette and Gina Cascone
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publication Month November 2012
By: Starscape
ISBN: 9780765330703
Book Source: publisher
4 stars
Book summary from Goodreads: The Deadtime Stories by “Twisted Sisters” Annette and Gina Cascone—they’ll scare you silly and give you giggles at the same time.
C. T. and his cousin Lea are staying at their grandparents’ old farmhouse. It’s Grandpa’s seventieth birthday, and everyone’s celebrating with a big family reunion. All the weird relatives are here, and all they seem to want to talk about are “the good old days.”
C. T. and Lea think “the good old days” are pretty boring—until they find some home movies hidden away in the attic, movies from when their grandfather was just a boy. The home movies give them a piece of family history that the relatives never talked about. It seems that horses, cows, pigs, and chickens aren’t the only creatures Grandpa’s been taking care of on the farm.
C. T. and Lea discover there’s a monster among them—and this creature is dying to eat a lot more than the birthday cake!
Hill & Brand Entertainment has inked a deal with Cookie Jar Entertainment to distribute (worldwide) the first season of 26 half-hour, live-action episodes based on the Deadtime Stories books. “Grave Secrets” will serve as the pilot episode(s). Cookie Jar distributes over 6,000 episodes of kid’s television programming around the world and serves as a worldwide merchandising agent for the properties. Previously, they were the producers (together with Nickelodeon) and distributors of the very successful Nick show “Are You Afraid of the Dark.”
Marisa’s Review: This book was rather cute. It is aimed at the middle school audience and during the hour it took for me to read it not once did I think that it was too intense for my children to read. I believe this is a great read for a child of most ages because the fear factor is actually gentle and cute. Violence is, for the most part, speculative and given little detail. The adults in the book are rather stern with their children as far as obedience goes and the kids were for the most part well behaved, setting a good example for the young reader. The chapters are rather short so a child or a family could read a chapter or two each night at bedtime for a week or so and be excited to continue the following evening.
Annette and Gina Cascone did a great job writing this book and I would love to read the five previous books by them in this series since the first books are normally the best and this one was pretty good! I will be looking for their names at upcoming book-fairs at the schools knowing that these are thrillers for the little ones that won’t cause nightmares.
About the Authors: The Cascone sisters grew up in Central New Jersey with their father, a criminal defense attorney, and their mother, who claimed to have ESP. The Cascone sisters honed their storytelling skills early on in life, mainly to stay out of trouble. Now, they are telling their crazy stories to anyone who will listen.