Module 8:  Nightmares!

Summary

Charlie can't sleep, the nightmares are too real.  Ever since he moved into his stepmonster's, or rather stepmom's, purple mansion he is visited by creepy, evil creatures in his sleep. They want to eat him, starting with his toes.  Charlie feels like there is nothing he can do to escape, and his exhaustion begins to wear him down. Charlie feels like his stepmom is behind all of this, and resents how is father and brother Jack seem to have forgotten all about his mom and her untimely death.  Charlie's longtime school friends eventually get him to reveal what's going on, and they band together to help him out.  A solution has to be found, especially when Charlie realizes that the frightening creatures are coming for his brother Jack, as well.  Charlie and his friends decide to face their fears, and discover that they are more powerful than they realized.  They discover that confronting their worst fears is the only way to defeat them.  Nightmares! is a scary story told with a good sprinkling of humor and adventure.  It also has underlying messages about courage, the process of grieving, and the value of reaching out to others when we need help.

Segal, J. & Miller, Kirsten. (2014). Nightmares! New York: Yearling.

Impressions

Nightmares! is a mix of scary and funny, with messages for readers about facing personal fears.  I think it has a fairly specific audience because of its content and style.  Readers have to have a level of maturity to handle the scary parts and to understand some of the more serious themes of grief and fear.  The protagonist in the story is in seventh grade, so older readers may not relate to the worries and perceptions of a 12 year old boy.  The vocabulary is also more appropriate for ages 9-14, so readers outside of this spectrum may have trouble staying engaged with the story.  I would be hesitant to read this to my fifth grade class because I would probably get complaints from parents that I am scaring their children, but I would feel comfortable promoting it as a middle school librarian to students.  It could be used as a discussion starter about literary techniques such as figurative language, plot development, and themes.  Overall, a good book with positive messages, delivered in a style of writing similar to Neil Gamain's Coraline and Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach.

Professional Review

Eleven-year-old Charlie Laird is absolutely convinced that his stepmother Charlotte is a witch.  She dresses funny, serves seriously strange food (kale pancakes), and runs a store called Hazel's Herbarium.  Charlie's dad, little brother, and friends all like Charlotte and think Charlie's still grieving for him mom.  He's also suffering from terrible nightmares, and living in Charlotte's crazy purple mansion isn't helping.  The evil witch who stars in those nightmares threatens to follow the protagonist into the real world and kidnap his brother.  Instead, he is tricked into the Nightmare World, peopled with monsters and madness; gorgons, goblins, crazy clowns, scary bunnies, tests filled with gibberish, and monomaniacal President Fear (who also inhabits the real world as the truly terrifying Principal Stearns).  But all is not what it seems, and some of the scariest creatures turn out to be sympathetic--or even allies.  There are lessons to be learned about facing fears and uncovering the real enemy in this tale.  Pals Alfie, Rocco, and Paige are interesting and fairly three-dimensional; most of the adults (with the exceptions of Fear/Stearns and Charlotte) are merely background.  The fear is a much psychological as anything, and there's humor and a fairly high ick-factor, but relatively little violence.  A good choice for elementary-aged scare-seekers.

Alpert, M. (2014). Nightmares! School Library Journal, 60(9), p. 132.

Library Uses

This book would provide a good lesson for plot.  There are several events that lead up to a clear resolution, and there are many parts that students could pull from to justify personal growth in the characters through the series of events.  Segal and Miller also use figurative language very effectively, allowing the reader's imagination to create images of the Netherworld and its creatures.  Students could discuss how the writers used language to paint a picture in the reader's head and then illustrate the image they see.  They could then identify the part of the book that provides good use of descriptive language.  One of the themes in Nightmares! is that facing your fears is a way to work through them and move past them.  Students can write an essay about a time when they worked through their fears and then share how they think it helped them.  Charlie's friends are very important to him in the story and they all help each other get through some scary, difficult things.  Students could use an iPad app to create a short presentation about how friends help one another.