Mostly Ghostly 04 – Little Camp of Horrors

Little Camp of Horrors by R. L. Stine is a spooky, jokey Mostly Ghostly story for 9 year olds about a boy who hates summer camp and ends up going anyway.

What happens

Max Doyle is haunted. Nicky and Tara used to live in his house, they're ghosts, and Max is the only person who can see or hear them. They're desperate to find their mum and dad, and Max has promised to help.

This is the fourth Mostly Ghostly book, and the thing they're all hunting for is a silver pendant Max used to wear. It's been missing for months. Then his big brother Colin, a junior counsellor at Camp Snake Lake, climbs onto the camp bus and pulls it out from under his T-shirt. He's had it all along!

So Max, who'd much rather stay home practising card tricks and anagrams, packs his bag for camp.

Camp is every bit as bad as he feared. The lake is supposed to be full of poisonous snakes. There's an abandoned cabin nobody should go near after dark, and a story about a Headless Camper. Max shares a cabin with the Wilbur brothers, who pick on a nervous new boy called Jakey. And Colin seems to think his main job is making Max's life a misery.

It's R. L. Stine, so the scares come with a wink. Plenty of them turn out to be pranks (you might guess some before Max does). He narrates the whole thing with a steady stream of jokes that nobody laughs at, and he's very easy to root for. He's scared of nearly everything but still dives in to rescue Jakey (literally, headfirst into the lake).

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Max gets a hard time at home as well as at camp. Colin punches him in the stomach, and his dad calls him a spineless wimp. Early on, a visit to the house goes horribly wrong, the ghosts are caught up in it, and it's properly creepy.

If your reader has an older brother or sister who teases a lot, Colin might feel a bit close to home. If they like their scares mixed with plenty of silliness, they'll probably lap it up.

What to read next

It's worth going back to Who Let the Ghosts Out if they haven't met the ghosts yet. It opens with Nicky and Tara walking home one night, puzzled that nobody seems to notice them.