Saturday, December 31, 2016

Young Scrooge by R.L. Stine - NO

Stine, R.L. Young Scrooge: a very scary Christmas story, 185 pages.  Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan), 2016.  $17.  Content: PG 

Rick Scroogeman hates Christmas with a passion.  That stupid movie means he gets called “Scrooge” all month long.  And his birthday is on Christmas so his parents use it as an excuse to only buy him one set of presents.  On the other hand, Scroogeman thinks he is the funniest kid at his school; he’s not a bully, he thinks, he’s just having fun with his friends.  Can the three ghosts cure this bully or is he a hopeless case?

Stine uses such a heavy hand in this adaptation of the classic story for a younger crowd that it becomes a unappealing farce.  His references to other Dickens characters are wasted on the target audience and very few adults besides reviewers are ever going to read this, so why bother.  Rick is so slow to get to understanding the purpose of the Ghosts and then the final paragraph ruins the whole idea of redemption anyway.

NOT RECOMMENDED.  Cindy, Library Teacher

1 comment:

Ms. Yingling said...

Yep. This had potential, and I was hoping it would be good, since 8th grade still does a Christmas Carol unit. Oh, well.