Thirteen Chairs

May 1, 2015
Summoning the courage to open a creaky door inside a spooky old house, Jack finds himself in a candlelit room with 12 strangers sitting around a table. Someone brings him a chair, and thus begins an evening of storytelling as, one by one, Jack's companions share haunting tales, each extinguishing a candle when done. Thirteen tales-Jack's is the last-are framed by brief introductions from the storytellers, characters in their own rights, lending depth to this lightly illustrated collection of stories within a story. In "Let Me Sleep," a man is haunted by the voice of someone he's robbed and killed until he returns to the burial site. "The Wrong Side of the Road" features a taxi ride that ends with terrifying similarity to a crash the passenger caused a year before. A character with a "craggy face" tells a tale of "darkness inside darkness" in "The Patchwork Sailor." A man writes himself to death in "Unputdownable," and in "Snowstorms," one Antarctic explorer after another mysteriously disappears. The tales become increasingly eerie as the candles are blown out and Jack realizes what his own role is. An enjoyable collection of ghost stories, perfect for reading by flashlight. (Short stories. 9-13)

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Starred review from April 1, 2015

Gr 7 Up-In this spine-tingling short-story collection, a young man named Jack finds himself part of a most unusual storytelling circle. When Jack opens a door to find 12 strangers sitting around a table, a lit candle in front of each of them, his natural curiosity gets the best of him and he joins the group, which is presided over by the proper Mr. Osterly, it becomes clear to Jack that whoever they are, the strangers have gathered to exchange tales. The set-up may remind adult readers of Neil Gaiman's short story "October in the Chair"-published in Fragile Things (William Morrow, 2006)-but the execution is wholly unique. Over the course of the evening, each person at the table tells a frightening story, and Jack comes to a gradual realization about his new acquaintances that will strike terror into readers' hearts. The breadth and scope of various stories is impressive-readers are treated to traditional jump tales, malevolent cats, folk tales, and vengeful ghost stories; new spine-chillers are revealed with each turn of the page. VERDICT Fans of chills and things that go bump in the night will want to read this uniformly excellent work-with the lights on.-Elisabeth Gattullo Marrocolla, Darien Library, CT

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2015
Grades 7-10 Shelton begins this collection of 13 tales with the phrase, Jack is a curious boy, and in the strange, spooky house with 13 mismatched chairs, his curiosity will surely be sated. Perhaps by an irredeemable thief who is haunted by the dead. Maybe in the story of a drunk driver and the life he took on one horrific rainy night. One storyteller spins a tale of her time at school, where she was feared by other children, though she was never certain why. Other stories touch on evil cats, bloody murders, and dead relatives, as well as devious writers and darkly menacing pirates. Jack's story, and his fate, is held until the very end, as is the legend of the house with the 13 chairs. Though these interconnected stories have some predictable foreshadowing and occasionally veer more toward mystery than straight horror, the old-fashioned writing style and relatively light scares make this a great fit for tweens who have graduated from Goosebumps but haven't quite mustered up the courage to dive into gritty YA horror.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2015
In an old house at night, twelve strangers meet by candlelight to tell ghost stories, and a thirteenth -- Jack, a boy who gate-crashes the gathering -- listens and waits for his turn. Mr. Blackmore tells of a thief-turned-murderer whose sleep is disturbed by his victim demanding back the ring he stole. Mr. Harlow describes a careless driver carried through time by an unearthly taxi driver to the scene of the accident he caused. Mrs. Trent narrates a tale of a young man who inherits his disagreeable aunt's house and her three cats, the nastiest of which seems bent on revenge even from beyond the grave. As the tellers finish, they blow out their candles until only Jack is left, but by then he is certain that the stories are more real than anyone has let on. The ghost stories' diverse subjects and the varied voices employed in their narration keep the pace moving along nicely, while the common theme of the tales -- that the dead seek retribution on their killers, or sometimes on bystanders who are just a little too curious -- provides low-key chills. And although the mechanism controlling Jack's eventual eerie fate seems a little unclear, these tangled yarns will continue to ensnare readers' thoughts even after the final page is turned. anita l. burkam

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)