Have you ever gotten hooked on a series that was a couple thousand pages each book? Well, thankfully the Spirited series might be a couple hundred for all six books but you will most likely (or your child more likely) become hooked. This easier to read graphic novel series is for the at least six and up crowd.
Spirited #5 Howl at the Moon by Liv Livingston (or LIV Livingston) is about one of the three main characters who is the werepup. Oh, yeah, probably should explain. The main character, Liv Livingston, is a human who has moved (with her family) to a town that is a real ghost town. It has ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and even an invisible teacher. So the trials of school are hard enough (an essay question is: what do you enjoy about ghost floating…) but she deals with the normal coming of age issues, such as issues with picture day if you are a vampire (volume four Fangs for the Memories) and here with being “too small” to play wolf-ball (a form of soccer).
So the themes of each story are normal, every day, coming of age things. Like artist block, dealing with being different (among people who are different) and so forth. I think book six It Came from the Deep (Liv has artist block and other fears) might have some of my favorite parts. I mean, I like all the books, but I got a kick out of a bat bus (really a bus that looks (kinda) like a bat. Mrs. Frizzle would be impressed).
And we go back to focusing on Liv in book six (we have read about her vampire friend, other Liv issues and so many other fun and not-so-spooky-spooky stuff). There are a few clues in books five and six (and I think there was one or two in book one) that Liv’s family isn’t totally clueless about the unusual occupants of the town (book five has her dad noticing how people glow and her baby sister sees the flying bat-bus, plus I’m sure the sister has a ghost friend).
I am not sure who the illustrator is for most of the titles as they are said to be Glass House Graphics. They are brightly colored, minimally detailed and are fun. There are not any “wow” moments, but I like that. I like knowing what to expect from the images, even if I am wondering about what will happen next in the story itself.
