Clarion Review JUVENILE FICTION Essie's Kids and the Rolling
Calf---3 Luke Brown CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
978-1-4565-7696-7 Mystery stories for kids have changed
dramatically in the last few decades. Characters like Encyclopedia
Brown and The Boxcar Children have been replaced by wizards,
vampires, werewolves, and zombies. Innocent sleuthing of creepy
houses has been replaced by elaborate battles with powerful
supernatural figures. That's what makes a ghost series like Essie's
Kids & The Rolling Calf stand apart from other children's
series. Husband and wife authors Luke Brown and Berthalicia
Fonseca-Brown have created a collection of books that lets kids be
... well ... kids facing ghostly circumstances. In this, the third
installment, Essie's children-Gena, Betty, Myrtle, Junior, Leonard,
and Karl-are enjoying a wonderful vacation and making friends with
neighboring kids in the countryside around Clear Mount, Jamaica.
But behind the idyllic background, a ghost roams the land-something
called a "rolling calf," an unnerving, clanking ghost with red
eyes. Karl can't shake the feeling that the rolling calf is after
him in particular. After a terrible nightmare, he knows nothing
will change until he faces that ghost himself. Essie's Kids is
refreshing in that it has a spooky premise, but feels more like The
Hardy Boys than Harry Potter. Even while Karl knows he must face an
unknown and possibly dangerous adversary, he is surrounded by a
family that cares for him. This is a world where kids go five miles
to the perfect place to swim or girls spend the day jumping rope.
When the adventure does get going, the characters never lose the
camaraderie of friends, the touchstone of solid parents, or the
importance of a lesson learned. Karl's world is such a pleasant one
that many readers may long to see more. While we read about squeaky
floors as Karl walks and girls playing hopscotch on squares drawn
in dirt roads, the Browns do not provide enough description of the
setting. Essie's Kids has many opportunities to show us Jamaica
from a child's eyes-the homey bungalow where the family stays, the
green and rolling countryside, or the clear, sun-freckled waters of
the nearby river. These opportunities to give readers vivid images
are longingly missed. The lack of description may be by design. The
text is laid out with no illustrations and includes an area at the
back for children to cultivate their imagination by drawing their
own images. It's a nice touch in a book that's written with a
simplicity that will appeal to younger readers, but that has the
length to attract older kids. Essie's Kids is personal and
heartfelt, and each book in the series contains a moral. In this
installment, Essie tells her kids to be positive in the face of
adversity. This kind of message shows that it doesn't matter if
you're facing down a rolling calf, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, or a
bully in a school yard. Being positive is a universal lesson that
can improve the lives of children-and maybe even that of some
adults. Katerie Prior
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