Grave Images by Jenny Goebel
The Hook:
Poor old Bernie—she’s having a pretty rough summer. Afterall, it’s pretty hard to make friends when you live at the graveyard and your family makes tombstones. Everyone thinks your house is creepy and well…you must be too. It’s even worse because her family hired Mr. Stein—the ultimate creepy guy—to engrave the tombstones. Bernie has a bad feeling about him right from the start. She snoops around his cottage and discovers an engraved tombstone of their neighbor—who is still alive! What’s really weird is the woman dies the very next day. And it’s not just a coincidence. The pattern continues. Mr. Stein engraves another headstone—that person dies the next day! Now Bernie has to ask herself a horrifying question…Is Mr. Stein PREDICTING the deaths? OR is he CAUSING them? Will Bernie’s snooping cause her to be next? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
My Thoughts (Careful! There May Be Spoilers.)
Really good book but a little slow in the beginning with the character development. The story totally makes up for it because it picks up as we go along and by the end I couldn’t put this book down! I give it 4 stars!
Bernie is a likable character. You really feel for her because even though at school she is viewed as kind of the creepy girl whose family owns the graveyard, she wants to help in the family business. Her mother is deeply depressed—almost bedridden due to the death of Bernie’s infant brother nearly a year ago.
Bernie is an artist and she thinks she can help with engraving the tombstones and this will free up some of her dad’s time and he can spend more time with her mom. But her dad hires Abbot Stein who etches eerily lifelike portraits on the tombstones. They are beautiful in a hypnotizing way. She thinks maybe she can learn something from this guy but then again, he gives her a really bad feeling and so instead she just watches him from afar. That’s when she realizes he’s making tombstones of live people, only for them to die the next day.
I love the character of Michael Romano. He is an oddball, new kid and the sheriff’s son who ends up helping her. There is a little romance between Michael and Bernie and that’s fun too. This book has a great plot and it’s not TOO scary. It’s a real page-turner in the end!
My Recommendations:
The publisher and professional reviewers such as Kirkus and School Library Journal say this book is for kids in 4th-8th grade. I would say that is about right. It is only 208 pages which makes it perfect for reluctant readers. Yet, the plot is strong enough that big readers will love it too! This book is for anyone who loves a scary book but not TOO scary. I’m sure it would make a great audio book but I cannot find it in that format. Still, I think even reluctant readers will enjoy this one!
