Title: The Haunted Trousers | Author: Alex Gerrard | Pub. Date: 10/08/2011 | Pages: 190 | ASIN: B005U3UCZK | Genre: Children’s Fiction | Language: English | Triggers: Child illness | Rating: 4 out of 5 | Source: Self-Purchased
The Haunted Trousers
It started as a school project about World War 2, but Emma, Jamie and Michael soon discover that finding an old pair of trousers, that had once belonged to a boy killed in the war, would unleash a deadly horror that haunted their village school and would put their lives in deadly danger. A creepy, supernatural story of ghosts and time-travel – with lots of humour thrown in. You will want to read this with the lights on!
The Haunted Trousers Review
I really liked The Haunted Trousers. So much, in fact, that when my son and I were reading it together I stayed up to finish it after he fell asleep. The characters of Jamie and Emma were great. They were very believable as siblings but not so cutesy to each other that it made me want to gag. They argue a bit but Jamie is there for his little sister when she needs him. Call me old (or maybe I just don’t read enough kid’s books) but there doesn’t seem to be enough of that in kid’s books lately.
The mystery in The Haunted Trousers is engaging and moves along briskly. There’ are ghosts, hauntings, time travel and visions. There’s a lot of stuff packed into this book but the author does a good job of keeping it fairly reasonable. There’s also a bit of history about World War II that was pretty interesting. There’s also a bit of religion but The Haunted Trousers is not centered around it. The kids go to church a few times and guardian angels make an appearance near the end.
The author does a very nice job of writing dialogue for the kids and actually making them sound like kids. The writing style in The Haunted Trousers is very casual and flows smoothly. The worst is an over-use of exclamation marks in the narration. The ending was surprising in a very pleasant way which I won’t spoil for you. The epilogue makes it seem as though the author might have been considering writing a series and I rather wish they would. I wouldn’t mind reading about Jamie, Emma and Michael again.
All in all it’s a nice, spooky ghost story for fourth to middle school age kids.
GracieKat was the first co-host of Sci-Fi & Scary, Lilyn’s partner-in-crime, and sub-head of the Kali Krew. She reviews horror books, movies, and games for the site. She also does a weekly Focus on the Frightful feature, and is the site list-maker. She is also in control of the Sci-Fi & Scary podcast which will relaunch soon.
You had me with the title and cover. The icing on the cake was read with the lights out!