![]() How does one discuss this book with other people, if you want to retain that element of surprise? He might as well be talking to reviewers too. He admits that if you tell other people precisely what this book is about you “might feel like taking away your friend’s chance to fully experience the story.” There’s an element of surprise about this book and Kyle addresses that. There’s a moment at the end of the book where Kyle does something in his Author’s Note that I’ve never really seen before. And when they do they’ll have this fantastic lightbulb moment. Some kids will read, or even reread, this book and see what Lukoff’s doing with these moments. “It looks like someone’s idea of what I look like, without me behind it.” There are other examples of this, like the dream where Bug feels compelled to keep putting dresses on, even though they’re painful, and cannot seem to stop. It does everything Bug does, perfectly, but it’s not BUG’s face. Sometimes, we hear, the face in the mirror isn’t Bug’s. The best of these is what Bug sees when looking in a mirror. Likewise, Too Bright to See takes little moments and makes them both scary and smart. The film Get Out is both a classic body snatcher storyline and a comment on race. You could get a ripping good yarn out of it, but horror is often most interesting when it gloms onto an aspect of society that someone, somewhere finds horrifying. Yet horror for horror’s sake rings hollow. ![]() I’ll spare you a description of the moment when Bug wakes up and opens a sock drawer. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to crawl under the covers of MY bed right now, never to return. There’s a kind of poltergeistish sequence that will probably get more attention from the kids, but for me the freakiest moment in the whole darn book is when Bug wakes up and sees everything in the bedroom has been thrown into chaos. It is for that reason, then, that I highly enjoyed the scares Kyle puts in this book. ![]() You can try to pull out all the usual horror techniques, but that simple act of something in your home not being quite right. Reader, I found this unspeakably terrifying. When she woke up the shoes were neatly tucked under the couch where she slept. It was just that a woman had taken off her shoes by the front door, walked to the couch, and taken a nap. Nothing like spooky noises or faces reflected in glass or anything like that. The television show was recounting a typical low-key haunting. Once I was on a plane flipping channels and I came across a ghost-related docu-series that appeared to have been strapped for cash in the course of filming. A ghost with a very specific message, but only if Bug’s ready to hear it. As things escalate, Bug begins to suspect that this is the work of a brand new ghost. First there’s a broken bottle of nail polish. That means makeovers, nail polish, shopping for clothes, the works! Bug’s not sure what to think about all this, even before the ghosts start acting increasingly strange. What’s strange is that middle school is looming and Bug’s best friend Moira is determined to get them ready. Their house is haunted (always has been) but that’s par for the course. Of course, for Bug, things are never actually normal. Bug and Bug’s mom, who lived with him for many years, are distraught but getting by. And yes, there will be oodles of spoilers. When we talk about wanting to see a diverse range of books for kids, this is precisely what we should be thinking of. Because this isn’t just your average ghost story. Well not today, suckers! Today we are going to drill down and get right smack dab into the middle of why Kyle Lukoff’s Too Bright to See is as groundbreaking as it is. They know and you have to walk off realizing that you just completely failed to help place that book in the firmament of great children’s literature where it so richly deserves to be. But other reviewers and members of the general public? They know. Your review might be a mighty font of mediocre and still they’ll tell you that it made them feel good. Authors, I have found, are still very kind when this happens. Many is the time that I’ve sat down to write a really ripping review only to find my fingertips failing over and over again to convey what it was about the book that was so very great. Just because I’ve read an amazing book for kids, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be able to string words together that make that fact tangible to anyone else. Dial Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Penguin Random House)Ī great book can inspire a great review but it’s not a one-to-one correlation.
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