What shall we read for OCTOBER? - RUN-OFF POLL

[Jemima]

Yes, it's time to gather your nominations for our group read for October.

Please nominate up to two books for us to read that month, and since it ends with Halloween, I'm going to continue our normal practice of setting the theme as:

SCARY and/or PARANORMAL

...and remember, we're talking about MG books, NOT YA!

Books should also be easily available at reasonable price, e.g. in libraries worldwide or available for under $5 on Amazon. We restrict indie-published books to a special poll once or twice a year.

I'm going to limit the nominations to 8 in all for this, since we got too big a spread on last month's ten, without actually requiring a run-off. When that happens we don't seem to get enough people reading it and commenting, which defeats the purpose of the poll.

Please get your nominations in early, and by 14th September at the latest, so I can set up the poll on the 15th or when we've got eight. I'm going to be otherwise engaged for the week after that, so I hope I remember to set it all up.

Happy reading!

PS Don't forget, you can check which books we've already read by looking at the all-time list https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Louie]

I nominate Dial-a-Ghost by Eva Ibbotson and Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith.

[Manybooks]

Marianne Dreams

The Ghost of Northumberland Strait

[C.J.]

I'd like to nominate The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann, which has some of the eeriest imagery I've ever read in a kids' book. It kept me very much on the edge of my seat.

[Rebecca]

Results of the availability check:
Marianne Dreams wasn’t in my library, but is a $4 ebook on Amazon.
Ditto The Ghost of Northumberland Strait, but it’s a $3 ebook.

Others are in my moderately large library system in CA (my actual ability to get books from the library will be different this year, and pretty much limited to ebooks).

I will nominate The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, even though it’s number 2 in a series.

[Harley]

I nominate: The Old Willis Place and Castle Hangnail.

[Harley]

Rebecca wrote: "Results of the availability check:
Marianne Dreams wasn’t in my library, but is a $4 ebook on Amazon.
Ditto The Ghost of Northumberland Strait, but it’s a $3 ebook.

Others are in my moderately la..."

I read the The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing for the second time last summer. Good choice.

[Tonja]

I nominate The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier .

[Manybooks]

The Girl Cried Murder

[Jemima]

Stop, stop! :)

That's twelve already, so we'll have to have a poll then a run-off probably.

After doing the poll I realised someone had mentioned the same book twice - please don't do that, additional support doesn't count :)

The Girl Cried Murder appears to be YA, and quite strong YA at that, so I've left it out.


You can vote here: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

The poll closes at the end of the day on 16th September. I'm expecting a run-off. I hope I'll be able to put this up smoothly, but I may be offline for a bit next week.

[Jemima]

We had so few votes for the October book, and the result was so close, I've posted a run-off poll between the first three.

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

This poll closes Sunday night.

Please vote - and get others to do so as well!

[Jemima]

Well, it's still too close to call, so I should do a casting vote. But since my library doesn't carry any of them, I have no real preference.
Then I thought of looking to see how many people need these titles for their A to Z Challenge, but O and N are pretty equal.

Castle Hangnail sounds the most fun but a second hand copy from Amazon will cost me £5, since it looks like having the illustrations is important.
The Old Willis Place sounds like it heads into YA scariness levels, and I could get it for around £3 from Amazon, with the Kindle copy at £5
The Night Gardener (there's another UK author with the same title which is confusing) isn't on Kindle, but again costs just under £5 for a used copy.

I could just say 'read one of them'...

Any thoughts?

[Manybooks]

Jemima wrote: "Well, it's still too close to call, so I should do a casting vote. But since my library doesn't carry any of them, I have no real preference.
Then I thought of looking to see how many people need t..."

I own The Old Willis Place but I would be fine with either it or Castle Hangnail. although after devouring The Old Willis Place in less than four hours, I am definitely leaning towards it (it is creepy, but also sad and thought provoking).

[Louie]

I read The Night Gardener a few years ago and I would recommend it highly as being very creepy and mysterious, though Castle Hangnail looks the most middle grade and Octobery out of all three.

[Jemima]

Okay, we're going with Castle Hangnail. Decision made!

[Rebecca]

Jemima wrote: "Okay, we're going with Castle Hangnail. Decision made!"

Cool! I like my spooky stories to be funny.

[Justine]

Oh good. I've got that book on loan already.

[Manybooks]

Justine wrote: "Oh good. I've got that book on loan already."

And I actually have the book on kindle and forgot ...

[Harley]

I read Castle Hangnail last October. Since it is on my list of books to be read again, I am ready to read it once more.