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  • A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting by Joe Ballarini
  • Sarah Sahn
Ballarini, Joe A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting. Tegen/HarperCollins, 2017 [352p] illus.
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-243783-9 $13.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-243785-3 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys         Ad Gr. 5-7

All Kelly Ferguson wants is to go to summer camp—so badly that she's willing to (gulp) babysit, even though she doesn't particularly like children and she thinks it's a job for nerds. Things get complicated when Kelly's first charge, four-year-old Baby Jacob, gets carried off by Toadies (goblin-like critters who have an affinity for trash) to the Grand Guignol, who plans to use Jacob's nightmares to populate the world with monsters. The novel dwells a little too long on Kelly's cool-kid aspirations, but it delivers an entertaining mix of humor and horror once she teams up with punk-rock high-schooler Liz and the other members of the Order of Babysitters to rescue Jacob. Together, they venture into the Grand Guignol's deliciously creepy lair, furnished with walls of televisions playing horror movies and hanging cages in which to keep captive babysitters, and fight off giant centipedes, gargoyles, and carnivorous broccoli. The brisk action doesn't leave much room for characterization, and it relies on stereotypes that could do with some pushback, especially for Kelly's fellow eighth-grade Invisibles/babysitters: they're introduced as lazy caricatures, and they don't get nearly enough screen time to compensate. This is a setup for a longer series, though, and all the characters will no doubt gain further depth in future volumes as it delves into the larger universe of monsters and babysitters that Kelly has entered. Reviewed from an unillustrated galley.

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