Barry Hutchison’s Spectre Collectors: Too Ghoul For School is a daft, fast ghost-busting comedy for 10 year olds about a boy who can see what nobody else can.<\/p>\n
Denzel is stuck on his algebra homework when his rubber starts walking across the table. Next, a smoky thing with tentacles appears in the corner of the dining room. Then two teenagers blow a hole in the wall.<\/p>\n
One of them has a very big gun. The other has a glowing third eye on her forehead and a habit of shouting its name. Neither of them can see the ghost, and Denzel can (which is apparently impossible).<\/p>\n
They wipe his memory with a puff of glittery dust and leave. The next day at lunch the school bin explodes into a giant rubbish monster made of Coke cans and Wotsits, and it’s after Denzel.<\/p>\n
That’s roughly when he and his best mate Smithy end up in the back of a van with the Spectre Collectors, a centuries-old secret society that catches ghosts. Samara does the magic (not always successfully). Boyle does the shooting and does not do jokes.<\/p>\n
It’s very, very silly in the best way. The girl tries a spell to get woodland animals to tidy up, like in Snow White. Within three minutes the sparrows are pecking the stag and two badgers are roughing up a squirrel with a can of furniture polish.<\/p>\n
Smithy is the one your reader will quote. He has sinus problems he’ll describe in detail to anyone who asks (and plenty who don’t). He throws himself head first into a bin twice. He also takes some convincing that “an elephant never forgets” is about actual elephants.<\/p>\n
Denzel is the calm one, mostly. The fun is watching an ordinary boy who’s rubbish at maths get dragged into something enormous, with his mouth hanging open the whole time.<\/p>\n
It’s worth knowing the Spectre Collectors carry guns and point them at people, Denzel included. A teacher gets flattened by a rubbish-bin arm too. It’s all played for laughs, more slapstick than scary. But if guns in a children’s book bother you, you’ll want to know before you hand it over.<\/p>\n
If they’re after another pair of friends who find out their ordinary town is hiding monsters, try The Bigwoof Conspiracy. Lucy sneaks out in a thunderstorm with a camera to prove there’s something out in the Sticky Pines woods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barry Hutchison’s Spectre Collectors: Too Ghoul For School is a daft, fast ghost-busting comedy for 10 year olds about a boy who can see what nobody else can. Denzel is stuck on his algebra homework when his rubber starts walking across the table. Next, a smoky thing with tentacles appears in the corner of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13430,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":8731,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Bigwoof Conspiracy","lr_seo_hook":"Glittery memory-wiping dust, a rubbish-bin monster and a very big gun."},"book_tag":[1050],"age_group":[29],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[130],"class_list":["post-8681","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-action-books","age_group-books-for-10-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-barry-hutchison"],"yoast_title":"Spectre Collectors: Too Ghoul For School by Barry Hutchison | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Glittery memory-wiping dust, a rubbish-bin monster and a very big gun. For ages 10+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n