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A Bite Above the Rest

Additional information

Author

Christine Virnig

Genre

Middle Grade – Contemporary, Middle Grade – Horror

Release Date

August 6, 2024

Publisher

Aladdin, Simon & Schuster

Mood

Spooky

Categories , Tag Product ID: 20072

Description

A boy moves to a Halloween-themed town only to realize there may be more to the tourist trap than meets the eye in this fast-paced romp of a middle grade novel perfect for fans of The Last Kids on Earth and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library!

When Caleb’s mom decides they are moving to her childhood home in Wisconsin, Caleb is not thrilled. Moving schools, states, and time zones would be bad enough, but Mom’s hometown is Samhain, a small and ridiculously kitschy place where every day is Halloween.

Caleb is not a fan of Halloween when it only happens once a year, so Halloween-obsessed Samhain is really not the place for him. How is he supposed to cope with kids wearing costumes to school every single day? And how about the fact that the mayor is so committed to the bit that City Hall is only open from sundown to sunup to accommodate his so-called vampirism? Sure enough, Caleb becomes an outcast at school for refusing to play along with the spooky tradition like the other sixth graders. Luckily, he manages to find a friend in fellow misfit Tai, and just in time, because things are getting weird in Samhain…or make that weirder.

But there’s no way the mayor is an actual vampire, and their teacher absolutely cannot really be a werewolf—right? Caleb discovers Samhain is so much stranger than he ever could have imagined. As one of the only people who realizes what’s happening, can he save a town that doesn’t want saving?

About the Author

Photograph of author Christine Virnig

Christine Virnig is a former pediatric allergist who now spends her days writing gross-but-educational middle grade nonfiction, spooky-but-funny
middle grade novels, and picture books that feature inanimate objects as the main character. Her three books to date include: A Bite Above the Rest, Dung for Dinner, and Waist-Deep in Dung.

When not writing, Christine works as a youth librarian assistant at her local library. She lives in southern Wisconsin with her family, an exorbitant number of dust bunnies, and one incredibly lazy cat.

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