Hardcover, 185 pages
Release Date: September 16, 2016Published by: Feiwel & Friends
Read from: December 22-23, 2016Stand-aloneSource: LibraryFor fans of: Christmas, Retellings, MG, Horror, Paranormal, Sparkly CoversRick Scroogeman hates Christmas. He can’t stand the carols and the pageants. He can’t stand the lights and the mistletoe. But what he hates the most is having to watch the old movie A Christmas Carol every year at school. Since his name is Scroogeman, all of his classmates start calling him Scrooge. And he hates being called Scrooge.
But everything starts to change when three ghosts visit him. At first, he thinks it’s a dream. But then he realizes that it might be a nightmare. A nightmare that could become real.
Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story is a funny, scary middle-grade send up of A Christmas Carol, about a boy who hates Christmas, from bestselling Goosebumps author R. L. Stine.
For some reason I ONLY wanted to read something with a holiday twist. But the first one I started put me in a bit of a Scroogey mood, so I was happy to see this one show up at the library for our display. Well since it got closer to when we would close, I snatched it off the shelf.
Rick Scroogeman is a really nice kid…. Well he thinks so. He HATES Christmas and thinks everyone else should too.He thinks everyone should stop watching the Christmas Carol movie they watch every year and they should most definitely stop calling him Scrooge. But then since he’s so mean and hates Christmas, he gets a visit from the very ghosts that he hated from the movie….
To be honest, I was looking for this to seriously creep me out, but I had to put my MG cap back on and remember that this was a Children’s/ Middle Grade book. The things that were scary to me back when I was this age (however stupid they were lol) are completely different than what might scare me now. After I remembered that, I continued to read it for the humor and not the scary aspect. It was quite good after that. I really liked seeing the way Stine changed everything to fit the retelling.
But as a character driven reader, that’s the exact reason I didn’t like this book. I was not a fan of Rick, before or after the ghosts. He was a super bad kid that needed a whoopin and then afterwards it just felt like he was just saying things because peple wanted to hear. He didn’t learn anything throughout the entire story and that just annoyed me.
As for the re-telling, it was a solid one. It hit all the major points and had it’s own twists on them. I was really happy with it because A Christmas Carol is my favorite read and watch during the Christmas season. I always find myself watching or reading many different versions of it and this one was one I can see adding to my queue.
Stine never steered me wrong when I was little, and he hasn’t done it now that I’m grown either. If you’re looking for a holiday read without all the super-duper swoons, try this fun, middle grade. I’m certain it’s something you will want to read over and over.
Overall, I give this
