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A review by cherylrainfield
Nightmare Academy by Dean Lorey
4.0
Charlie’s imagination is so strong that when he has a nightmare, the nightmare creature gets portaled right into the room where he’s sleeping. This caused a lot of problems for Charlie, including his parents becoming both over-protective of him and very restrictive, isolating him from other people and children. People are afraid of him, and he doesn’t fit in anywhere. Charlie is very lonely, until one day some people come from the Nightmare Academy, a school that trains children with imagination to fight the monsters from the Netherworld. Charlie is one of the most powerful people at the academy, and he still doesn’t fit in–but he gains a few good friends and starts his training. He ends up having to fight powerful monsters, work to save his family, and deal with bullies. Through this, Charlie finds that he can use his imagination and self-doubt for good–and he can find his own place to fit in, after all. Don’t let the cover fool you–this is a funny, light-hearted fantasy.
Lorey opens the book by showing us how lonely and alone Charlie is, bringing instant reader empathy, and then quickly moves into zany humor. This humor and kookiness runs throughout the book; Lorey has a good sense of comedic timing. THe humor plus the array of characters who support Charlie and look out for him, help to bring lightness to the story. Although the monsters are presented as a threat, they never seem truly scary, and Charlie always overcomes or overpowers them. Even sections of the story that might take a much deeper, more serious tone in another book are suffused with lightness in this one, so the book feels like a pleasure read, never taking the reader to truly dark places or painful emotion. This is not a tension-fraught book. The fantasy explanations for some of the things that happen in the real world also add fun and lightness–such as Gremlins coming to Earth and eating up the power, creating rolling blackouts in New York and California.
You can read my entire review here.
Lorey opens the book by showing us how lonely and alone Charlie is, bringing instant reader empathy, and then quickly moves into zany humor. This humor and kookiness runs throughout the book; Lorey has a good sense of comedic timing. THe humor plus the array of characters who support Charlie and look out for him, help to bring lightness to the story. Although the monsters are presented as a threat, they never seem truly scary, and Charlie always overcomes or overpowers them. Even sections of the story that might take a much deeper, more serious tone in another book are suffused with lightness in this one, so the book feels like a pleasure read, never taking the reader to truly dark places or painful emotion. This is not a tension-fraught book. The fantasy explanations for some of the things that happen in the real world also add fun and lightness–such as Gremlins coming to Earth and eating up the power, creating rolling blackouts in New York and California.
You can read my entire review here.