A Bite Above The Rest by Christine Virnig

Oh gosh, I really do hope this is the start of a series! It’s so cute, and the ending is the perfect setup for sequels galore!

Eleven year-old Caleb isn’t super thrilled to have to leave California and all his memories of his late dad. But his mom enjoyed growing up in small town Wisconsin and wants a similar (and also more affordable) upbringing for her kid, so here they are in the quirky town of Samhain. Immersively, if not outright aggressively, themed as a Halloween-town, everyone dresses up every day in a place which is always decorated for spooky season. Even the kids wear full-out costumes to school, which Caleb finds pretty strange in an already super disorienting, pumpkin-spice-filled environment.

Luckily for him, his classmate Tai has volunteered to show him around and help him get settled. Caleb immediately assumes that plucky, vivacious Tai already has lots of friends, before realizing that mixed race Tai doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the Samhain denizens either. The two fall into an easy friendship, and decide to collaborate on a Social Studies project together with the aim of figuring out local government. Tai has a bit of an ulterior motive: her family is still mystified by a decision made by town council years earlier, and she wants to get to the bottom of it.

Their investigations into a seemingly dull bureaucratic issue, however, soon have them wondering whether the people behind Samhain are really just pretending to be monsters… or whether they actually are supernatural creatures preying on the unsuspecting. Soon, Caleb and Tai are racing to outwit some of the town’s most esteemed residents, even as those closest to them are being targeted. But what could exposing the truth potentially cost them?

This was an absolute romp of a middle grade novel, as two outsiders work to explode a town’s secrets while striving to protect their families. It’s easy to sympathize with both Caleb and Tai, who have perfectly reasonable questions and reactions to some less than welcoming behavior. It’s also a treat to see how the supernatural is handled here. As a Malaysian, when the witch next door introduced herself as Mrs Dukun, I got chills!

I also really enjoyed the big twist ending, and hope to read more of the town of Samhain and of Caleb and Tai’s efforts to protect it. I tore through this book overnight and am super ready to press it on my kids once they decide they’re ready for some spooky season reading, along with the exceptional first book in The Doomsday Archives series, The Wandering Hour. Scary, funny and with real emotional depth at their core, books like these make Middle Grade horror my favorite of all the horror subgenres.

A Bite Above The Rest by Christine Virnig will be published tomorrow August 6 2024 by Aladdin and is available for pre-order from all good booksellers, including