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Shadow Zone #10
Scream Around the Campfire
When they spot an enormous hairy beast in the woods, summer camp at Camp Slumbering Pines goes from dull to deadly for Gina and Frank Giardelli, and the campers have the biggest fright of their lives. Original.
124 pages, Paperback
First published December 20, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 8, 2022
What's a juvenile horror series without at least one book set at a summer camp? Scream Around the Campfire is that book for the Shadow Zone series, a story that's more coming-of-age than traditional horror. Eleven-year-old twins Gina and Frank Giardelli are sent to Camp Slumbering Pines in Washington's Cascade Mountains after their mother takes a trip to visit her sister. Frank likes the idea of hanging out with other kids at camp, but Gina wants no part of roughing it in the outdoors. Her bunkmates—Stacey, Linda, and Rebecca—have attended this camp for years, so Gina is the odd one out in their social circle. She wishes she could go home, but she's stuck here at least until her mother returns. It seems unlikely that Gina's experience at camp is going to improve.
Socially isolated from her peers, Gina can't shake the feeling of being watched in the dark heart of the woods. Henry Creeley, the new owner of Camp Slumbering Pines, asks one of the counselors to tell all the campers the local legend of Big Foot, a species of huge, hairy humanoid said to have attacked a company of loggers many decades ago. The legend does nothing to ease Gina's mind, and her fears prove justified when a seven-foot-tall apeman grabs Gina and carries her away to a phosphorescent cave with a story painted on its walls, the story of the loggers and the Big Foot as seen from the perspective of the creatures. The Big Foot who abducted Gina, a youngster named Oak, speaks to her in English, but what he says is almost beyond belief.
It's public knowledge that Mr. Creeley is planning a major expansion for Camp Slumbering Pines. Construction has begun on posh new buildings meant to attract wealthy campers, but massive machines digging up the forest are negatively impacting the Big Foot species, disrupting the line between reality and the Shadow Zone. Oak just wants to be left alone, but older Big Foot are ready to act violently to keep Mr. Creeley off their land. The only chance for peaceful mediation is Gina, but she has no clue how to dissuade Mr. Creeley from his expansion project. He's not going to believe her about the Big Foot, who meticulously stay out of public view, so why would he stop construction? Gina needs to convince a few other campers to believe her crazy story and help her bridge the communication gap between humans and the Big Foot, or this summer at Camp Slumbering Pines is going to end in tragedy.
Like the other best Shadow Zone books, Scream Around the Campfire combines mildly scary elements with a story about growing up and learning who you are. Sleepaway camp is outside Gina's comfort zone; at first she puts in no effort to make friends, but in the heat of battle with supernatural creatures, she'll take allies wherever she can get them, even if they wouldn't be her first choice as friends. As Gina learns to enjoy camp, she also is figuring out how to feel comfortable in her own skin regardless of circumstances; she goes on to solve a dispute between humans and another species, and not just anyone is that resourceful. Scream Around the Campfire isn't as unpredictable or exciting as most of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books, but it's above average for this series, and part of me wants to give it two and a half stars. This is the kind of story Shadow Zone excels at.
Socially isolated from her peers, Gina can't shake the feeling of being watched in the dark heart of the woods. Henry Creeley, the new owner of Camp Slumbering Pines, asks one of the counselors to tell all the campers the local legend of Big Foot, a species of huge, hairy humanoid said to have attacked a company of loggers many decades ago. The legend does nothing to ease Gina's mind, and her fears prove justified when a seven-foot-tall apeman grabs Gina and carries her away to a phosphorescent cave with a story painted on its walls, the story of the loggers and the Big Foot as seen from the perspective of the creatures. The Big Foot who abducted Gina, a youngster named Oak, speaks to her in English, but what he says is almost beyond belief.
It's public knowledge that Mr. Creeley is planning a major expansion for Camp Slumbering Pines. Construction has begun on posh new buildings meant to attract wealthy campers, but massive machines digging up the forest are negatively impacting the Big Foot species, disrupting the line between reality and the Shadow Zone. Oak just wants to be left alone, but older Big Foot are ready to act violently to keep Mr. Creeley off their land. The only chance for peaceful mediation is Gina, but she has no clue how to dissuade Mr. Creeley from his expansion project. He's not going to believe her about the Big Foot, who meticulously stay out of public view, so why would he stop construction? Gina needs to convince a few other campers to believe her crazy story and help her bridge the communication gap between humans and the Big Foot, or this summer at Camp Slumbering Pines is going to end in tragedy.
Like the other best Shadow Zone books, Scream Around the Campfire combines mildly scary elements with a story about growing up and learning who you are. Sleepaway camp is outside Gina's comfort zone; at first she puts in no effort to make friends, but in the heat of battle with supernatural creatures, she'll take allies wherever she can get them, even if they wouldn't be her first choice as friends. As Gina learns to enjoy camp, she also is figuring out how to feel comfortable in her own skin regardless of circumstances; she goes on to solve a dispute between humans and another species, and not just anyone is that resourceful. Scream Around the Campfire isn't as unpredictable or exciting as most of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books, but it's above average for this series, and part of me wants to give it two and a half stars. This is the kind of story Shadow Zone excels at.
July 7, 2022
Welcome to my summer camp review thing. This time we're finally back to horror with Shadow Zone. This is a series started in 1994 that lasted for a bit, and is by JR Black. Barely any info on him exists and it's rumored to be an MT Coffin thing but I can't find proof either way. This series somehow got two TV movies, one of which I reviewed. It was eh but that was the movie. I will do the other movie but before that I wanted to possibly read one of the books that didn't become a movie to judge one of these totally on their own.
And I got my chance via the randomizer. Anyway, this was fairly good, but with some caveats. Gina is being sent to Camp Slumbering Pines, even though she doesn't want to go to some gross run down camp, along with her brother Frankie. She doesn't get along with her bunkmates at first and things get worse when she bumps into Big foot. Or rather, a Big Foot as again we have a whole race of them and it turns out they generally aren't too bad they mainly want her to stop the owner of this camp from tearing up their land.
Being 11, that may be hard but she'll have to try, or else. Yep, another Big Foot camp book, weird but I don't mind. So off the bat I'll say the main problem is with Gina, spefically her "voice". They try to have more of snarky tone here which doesn't quite work. She comes across as rather judgemental twoards others, and is rather whiny early on. It's not Camp Massacre bad, nothing is, but she can have moments that take me out of it.
Now, this is kind of the point, as she does get development. She has a nice thing with her brother, always like seeing that and she does eventually get along with the others in a decently natural way. I liked that, it did help. I just wish her snark was toned down and her liking this nerdy came in earlier than it did. Some of the snark works, like towards the camp owner guy, but some is kinda tryhard.
It will likely be a hurdle for some wanting to read this, as I know some have a lower tolerance with this kinda thing. That said, everything else is good. Pacing is solid, it gets started early on and doesn't have much filler. It keeps moving at a solid clip. The story is well done with there being some solid setup and payoff, as little seemingly pointless details come back. Again, there is some nice stuff here as well, even if could have been better.
The bigfoot stuff is interesting. This becomes an environmental story, as the camp owner, a typical greedy capitalist, wants to expand the camp and do it over the land the Big Foot are on. If this sounds like a colonialism commentary, that's cuz it is and they tell us the Big Foot long ago knew some Native Americans that were killed by "other humans". Yep, speaking of Camp Massacre, we get this again.
This keeps popping up, yeesh. It's a small moment here that I feel only exists so that the Big Foot aren't too awkward of a stand in, as otherwise you could poke more holes in that. It's interesting, I can't say how that fares but on its own I like the Big Foot, they are fed up with how humans are and threaten to really get riled up is Gina doesn't do something. The owner guy is a typical villain of his type but still fun/ It's cheesy but as far as this stuff goes, it works.
There isn't a ton of "horror" per say but the thread of what could happen if she doesn't help works fine. Also, the titular Zone isn't a metaphor, it's a real thing and it's weird and confusing. I know seemingly most of these do that and it does feel pointless and confusing, but it's kinda neat how it is used at the end.
The twist is whatever but we get a better wrapup than usual. As a whole, it is flawed to start out, but when you get past that, it is good. It's well paced, has some nice bits, and is a unique take on a Big Foot thing, as cheesy as it could kinda be. It's fairly solid, if my flaw was cleaned up I would rank this higher possibly. As it is, this worked well enough, despite some annoyances.
We'll see how Teacher Ate My Homework pans out but this does make the series look alright, a bit treyhard in the writing but decent stoeywise. Oh and there's a couple vocab words, had to fit that in there. Camp setting is sued decently well BTW, works on that level. Honestly, it's kind of a better version of Camp Cold Lake, as this has a kinda whiny girl failing to get along with others, a brother who is cooler and finds it easier to make friends, and one of those other girls has asthma.
Weird lol.
Anyway, that's it for this one. Next time, the wheel has picked a spooky mystery type thing, should hopefully be fun. See ya then.
And I got my chance via the randomizer. Anyway, this was fairly good, but with some caveats. Gina is being sent to Camp Slumbering Pines, even though she doesn't want to go to some gross run down camp, along with her brother Frankie. She doesn't get along with her bunkmates at first and things get worse when she bumps into Big foot. Or rather, a Big Foot as again we have a whole race of them and it turns out they generally aren't too bad they mainly want her to stop the owner of this camp from tearing up their land.
Being 11, that may be hard but she'll have to try, or else. Yep, another Big Foot camp book, weird but I don't mind. So off the bat I'll say the main problem is with Gina, spefically her "voice". They try to have more of snarky tone here which doesn't quite work. She comes across as rather judgemental twoards others, and is rather whiny early on. It's not Camp Massacre bad, nothing is, but she can have moments that take me out of it.
Now, this is kind of the point, as she does get development. She has a nice thing with her brother, always like seeing that and she does eventually get along with the others in a decently natural way. I liked that, it did help. I just wish her snark was toned down and her liking this nerdy came in earlier than it did. Some of the snark works, like towards the camp owner guy, but some is kinda tryhard.
It will likely be a hurdle for some wanting to read this, as I know some have a lower tolerance with this kinda thing. That said, everything else is good. Pacing is solid, it gets started early on and doesn't have much filler. It keeps moving at a solid clip. The story is well done with there being some solid setup and payoff, as little seemingly pointless details come back. Again, there is some nice stuff here as well, even if could have been better.
The bigfoot stuff is interesting. This becomes an environmental story, as the camp owner, a typical greedy capitalist, wants to expand the camp and do it over the land the Big Foot are on. If this sounds like a colonialism commentary, that's cuz it is and they tell us the Big Foot long ago knew some Native Americans that were killed by "other humans". Yep, speaking of Camp Massacre, we get this again.
This keeps popping up, yeesh. It's a small moment here that I feel only exists so that the Big Foot aren't too awkward of a stand in, as otherwise you could poke more holes in that. It's interesting, I can't say how that fares but on its own I like the Big Foot, they are fed up with how humans are and threaten to really get riled up is Gina doesn't do something. The owner guy is a typical villain of his type but still fun/ It's cheesy but as far as this stuff goes, it works.
There isn't a ton of "horror" per say but the thread of what could happen if she doesn't help works fine. Also, the titular Zone isn't a metaphor, it's a real thing and it's weird and confusing. I know seemingly most of these do that and it does feel pointless and confusing, but it's kinda neat how it is used at the end.
The twist is whatever but we get a better wrapup than usual. As a whole, it is flawed to start out, but when you get past that, it is good. It's well paced, has some nice bits, and is a unique take on a Big Foot thing, as cheesy as it could kinda be. It's fairly solid, if my flaw was cleaned up I would rank this higher possibly. As it is, this worked well enough, despite some annoyances.
We'll see how Teacher Ate My Homework pans out but this does make the series look alright, a bit treyhard in the writing but decent stoeywise. Oh and there's a couple vocab words, had to fit that in there. Camp setting is sued decently well BTW, works on that level. Honestly, it's kind of a better version of Camp Cold Lake, as this has a kinda whiny girl failing to get along with others, a brother who is cooler and finds it easier to make friends, and one of those other girls has asthma.
Weird lol.
Anyway, that's it for this one. Next time, the wheel has picked a spooky mystery type thing, should hopefully be fun. See ya then.
August 27, 2021
Gina and her brother are going to Camp Slumbering Pines for the summer; on the first night, the counselors tell the story of the camp legend - Sasquatch's that live in the surrounding woods.
It turns out the legend is true; there really are a group of Sasquatch living in the forest, and they need Gina's help with something.
It turns out the legend is true; there really are a group of Sasquatch living in the forest, and they need Gina's help with something.
August 8, 2017
Fun middle-grade horror set at summer camp.
Full recap (with spoilers) here: https://wordpress.com/post/necromommy...
Full recap (with spoilers) here: https://wordpress.com/post/necromommy...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews