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Tales Told Under the Covers

by De Kenyon (Goodreads Author)

4.56 of 5 stars 4.56 · rating details · 9 ratings · 6 reviews

Ten tales of death, invasions from other realms, bullies, babysitters, liars, and the brave kids who fight back. Zombie girls who have to hide, lest they get eaten by bigger zombies. Food that bites back. Wizards who are scared of their own power. Murdered (and murderous) pets. Secret superpowers. And that last, great voyage into the unknown.

Stories to be whispered under t...more

Paperback, 164 pages

Published October 4th 2011 by Createspace

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Jan 11, 2012 Elizabeth Barone rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of Goosebumps, horror, science fiction

I reviewed this collection of short stories a while back on my website, but for some reason never added it to my Goodreads!

I liked that almost every main character had some sort of problem that all kids have, and that they resolved those problems after overcoming things so fantastical, the adults in their lives wouldn’t believe them if they hadn’t been there, too. These kids rolled with the punches and took things into their own hands when the grownups were too scared to move. These kids were un

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Jan 12, 2012 Coreena rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a really cute selection of short stories for middle grade readers, focussing on the supernatural, featuring such creatures as zombie girls, sushi monsters, photos that come to life and cats that guard children's dreams.

Kenyon clearly has a lot of imagination and this comes through in her writing as the kids in her stories find themselves in some crazy and strange situations. The kids are always the one's to take action and save the day, which, again, will appeal to kids.

And then there i...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Read2review rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed-for-read-2-review

**For the full review please check out http://read2review.com/**

De has been one of my favourite authors for a while. Her combination of short and incredibly fun to read horror stories are some of the best work I have read for a while. With Tales Told Under The Covers De combined a number of her short stories into one volume. How much more perfect could it be?...

Read more here http://read2review.com/events-reading...

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Oct 30, 2011 EmmaMarie Hunneyball rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
These are stories where the kids are in charge. The cohesive family unit is important, but the kids are the ones who are empowered to save the world. The adults are largely helpless. Astra's Dad is physically helpless, he's been injured and can't work, which forces his daughter to take matters into her own hands. Neil's parents don't know the right way to kill zombies. Cat's parents are frozen with horror as the Sushi monster attacks and Marina's parents are eaten by Nibbles the giant rabbit. Th...more
These are stories where the kids are in charge. The cohesive family unit is important, but the kids are the ones who are empowered to save the world. The adults are largely helpless. Astra's Dad is physically helpless, he's been injured and can't work, which forces his daughter to take matters into her own hands. Neil's parents don't know the right way to kill zombies. Cat's parents are frozen with horror as the Sushi monster attacks and Marina's parents are eaten by Nibbles the giant rabbit. These children can walk into a world of the unknown and come up with a way to win. probably the best example of this is Connor, who is absorbed into a world of robots and works out how to win their war. De's characters are flawed, vivid and real. They are gutsy, intelligent and brave. I loved every one of them.

Scary stories for children abound in cliches around what makes something scary. I loved the way De turned these cliches on their heads. The zombies aren't scary: Neil isn't afraid of them, he hates them; and the resurrected class pet isn't scary, it tries to help Dawn and Sampson. In "Which is Bigger, the Moon or an Elephant? And Other Stupid Questions" De explores fear, the nature of scary things and what actually makes them scary. The atmosphere of tension as the children create their costumes is palpable. And in "A Picture is Worth 1000 Chomps" digital pictures on a laptop come to life in terrifying fashion, gobbling up everything in sight before being thwarted. De explores and subverts the conventions of fear, with the result that some of her stories are genuinely scary, whilst others are rib-ticklingly funny.

For her themes De pulls on a range of traditions and genre conventions. "Sushi Monster" and "Bunny Attack" are delightfully B-Movie-esque; whilst "Class Pet" tackles urban myths around ghosts and murdered pets, and "Zombie Girl Invasion" batters the Zombie Apocalypse. It is fantastic to see some aspects of adult genre fiction in there, handily bridging the gap between children's fiction and grown-up fiction, whilst leaving room for reinterpretation.

"The Society of Secret Cats" and "the Last Voyage of the Mermaid" touch on more serious themes: the first story deals with the perennial problem of the child, being trapped in nightmares, and the latter is a truly touching tale of an old man recapturing the imagination of his youth. Imagination is a theme that runs through all of the stories: exploring the effect imagination has on resolving problems and the trouble imagination gets you into. In a couple of cases I felt there was a delicious ambiguity about whether the events were "real" or "imaginary", but in true Lewis Carroll style, the two are interchangeable.

This a fast-paced collection of tightly-plotted stories which any child will read with frightened glee.(less)

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Jan 14, 2012 Gi-Gi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, first-reads, signed-books

I'd like to thank De Kenyon for sending me a signed copy of her book. It was fantastic and funny. But definitely for a younger audience rather than myself. But it did bring back a lot of memories of my childhood and the stories it was filled with. Thinking of them I kind of wished I had heard some of the stories in this book as a young child. These stories are definitively perfect for a kid who loves weird and strange things.

1 like · like · see review

Aug 29, 2012 Yvonne Stegall rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting. Different. Frightening. Sometimes funny. Thanks Goodreads for the freebie!(received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads)

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About De Kenyon

De Kenyon likes to cook and eat weird food that tastes good but grosses people out when they find out what’s in it, like chocolate truffles with fish sauce, fish heads, and tongue sandwiches. Her next gross-food project is going to be finding a tasty way to cook brains, which she will then feed to her daughter, aged ten.

She does karate with her daughter now, just in case zombies attack or her daug...more

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