No Place for Monsters
The little town of Cowslip Grove seems to be safe and orderly, full of neat gardens and tidy streets. That is, until two mismatched friends, Levi and Kat, discover a dark and terrifying secret beneath the surface: children are going missing, and nobody even realises it. Everyone—their family, their teachers, their friends—has forgotten they even existed!
This whacky and genuinely spooky tale is perfect for curling up with during a dark and stormy night. Although it seems like a long book for young readers, Kory Merritt’s scratchy black-and-white illustrations fill the pages with detail and atmosphere, perfectly capturing the impending terror and gruesome monsters that inhabit suburbia.
Levi is a reluctant hero, lonely and isolated after moving to town following a family separation. He has no friends and doesn’t mix easily, preferring the company of his younger sister Twila. Kat is a rebel and not much liked by her classmates, her teachers and even it seems, her parents. She’s not even very likeable as a character so it’s sometimes difficult to warm to her. Why Kat and Levi aren’t affected by the memory loss that wipes the missing children from the collective memories of everyone else in town is never fully explained and remains one of the mysteries of the book, but it doesn’t detract from the exciting story, which gallops along at whip-crack speed.
A truly terrifying tale, this horror story is for the bravest of young readers.
