R.L. STINE BOOK OF THE WEEK: Fear Street: One Evil Summer

Chrissy is perfect - perfectly evil.

From the back cover:

Help! Wanted

Summer at the beach and Amanda Conklin's stuck in summer school. Well, at least she doesn't have to take care of her little brother and sister. That's Chrissy's job.

Chrissy seems like the perfect babysitter - so kind and trustworthy. But Amanda soon discovers Chrissy's terrible secret. Babysitting is Chrissy's job - but killing is what she does best!

My thoughts:

I got my internet back just in time for my favourite post of the week! Since tomorrow is officially the first day of summer and it's very hot up here in Canada (my igloo is melting!), I'm going to kick off my Summer of Stine. For the rest of the summer my R.L. Stine Book of the Week will have a summer theme and will feature such classics as Beach Party, Beach House and Party Summer. First up: One Evil Summer.

You can tell just from the cover who the first victim will be. Chrissy is depicted holding poor Mr. Jinx in the air while he hisses at her. But he's just the first animal to die. The Conklin's also have two birds and Amanda adopts a stray kitten. And there are three human deaths - at least I think so, Stine just mentions one of them was taken to the hospital, so I'm just assuming that they died.

This book reminded me of the movie Summer of Fear (based on Lois Duncan's book of the same name) because Chrissy uses her powers to make Amanda's life horrible, but no one will believe Amanda, like the characters in that film. But the explanation for Chrissy's powers is unique - she uses more of her brain than the average person, which gives her the ability to do extraordinary things, just like Criss Angel. In fact, she can even levitate like him.

Amanda was a fairly intelligent character for an R.L. Stine novel, she knew there was something evil about Chrissy from their first meeting, and never gave up on her attempts to expose her.

One Evil Summer was one of my favourite Fear Street books when I was younger. Reading it for the second time I wasn't as impressed with it, but it's not a bad Fear Street book.

Rating: 3/5

Body count: 3

PG-13 gore: Without warning something strange happened to the knife. A bead of red slowly formed on its tip.

Amanda studied it curiously.

What's happening? she wondered.

She brought the knife up close, trying to see what was causing the stain.

Then, as she gaped in startled horror, a bright red spray shot out of the knife blade.

Blood! Amanda realized.

It's spraying blood! All over me!

Next week: Fear Street: Goodnight Kiss