The Zombie Stone

Gr 4-7–After the adventures of the first book, August is still a lonely boy with an unfortunate habit of attracting zombies. His attempt to retrieve the zombie stone leads him to adventures in a thinly disguised fictional New Orleans. There he encounters many fantastical characters, and of course more zombies. Despite the zombie premise, this book is more goofy than macabre with wacky shenanigans and over-the-top characters to appeal to fans of stories that mix reality and fantasy like Trenton Lee Stewart’s “The Mysterious Benedict Society” or Tom Angleberger’s “Origami Yoda.” The main character is genuinely likable, but he shows less character growth than in the first volume. All of the main and most of the secondary characters appear to be white. The plot is fairly fast paced, with a few points where it drags. This may not be worth adding at smaller libraries if the first didn’t circulate, but would be a good choice for medium or large libraries.