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Adventure Club #1
Ghost in the Graveyard
Life is pretty dull in the small town of Great Bear Heart. When six friends decide to liven things up by forming 'The Adventure Club', they get into far more trouble than they can handle! Join Shane Mitchell, Holly O'Mara, Dylan Bunker, Parker Smith, Tony Gritter and Lyle Haywood for some thrilling, suspenseful adventures that will keep you on the edge of your seat!
297 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2001
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81 people want to read
About the author
Johnathan Rand
119 books296 followersChristopher Wright is the author of dozens of horror fiction books for children and young adults. He writes under the pseudonyms Johnathan Rand and Christopher Knight. Almost all of Wright's books (save American Chillers) take place in his home state of Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 10, 2016
The Adventure Club is different from Johnathan Rand's Michigan Chillers and American Chillers, but it's easy to tell they're by the same author. Zany spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage aside, the childlike spirit of adventure that typifies Johnathan Rand's other series is evident in Ghost in the Graveyard, a novel that hearkens back to an earlier era of juvenile independence and eagerness to explore the great big world. Living in the small, unexciting town of Great Bear Heart, Michigan, the six heroes of our story—thirteen-year-old Shane Mitchell (the oldest of the group), Holly O'Mara, ten-year-old Dylan Bunker (the youngest), Parker Smith (our narrator), Tony Gritter, and Lyle Haywood—find stimulation by founding the Adventure Club, dedicated to discovering interesting things in their unspectacular hometown. With little supervision or interference from adults, the six kids reveal mysteries that would have lain undetected forever if not for them, and unintentionally put themselves in dangerous situations they'd never have been allowed to get into if a grown-up were watching. But perilous as their position sometimes is, no member of the Adventure Club would swap this summer for the humdrum of an ordinary session off from school. You only get one Adventure Club in your lifetime—if you're lucky—and no amount of security is worth not enjoying it to the full. These are bound to be five scintillating stories.
Parker and his quintet of pals seek a modicum of sweet payback against local news journalist Norm Beeblemeyer as our first story, Bigfoot Runs Amok, opens. Norm is an annoyance to the Great Bear Heart community at large, and the Adventure Club aims to put him in his place. What better way to humble the cocky reporter than tricking him into believing he's found the trail of Bigfoot, legendary creature of the American Northwest? A pair of plastic monster paws is all that's needed to set Norm agog at the prospect of locating Bigfoot, but the Adventure Club didn't count on the entire community believing the scam. Now everyone in Great Bear Heart is after Bigfoot, but the club members take it in stride, cleverly capitalizing on the fad. Why not pad the club's bank account while the townspeople excitedly search for Bigfoot? The hoax can't last forever, but if they're smart, the Adventure Club can exact payback on Norm without their own part in the Bigfoot charade being revealed. Methinks they are plenty sly to come out ahead in their first major escapade.
Project: Submarine is the next story, and it's similar in tone and content to parts of Aliens Attack Alpena from the Michigan Chillers series. When Lyle spots a rusted old submarine in Franklin's Junkyard, the idea of making it seaworthy again seems farfetched, but not for the Adventure Club. Improbably, and after many hours of meticulous labor and research, the submarine is patched up and set adrift in Puckett Lake. The undersea vessel actually works, and the Adventure Club dives below the surface in it to see sights no human ever has. It's a wondrous aquatic world down there, and only grows more exotic as they move deeper. Going hundreds of feet underwater is an extremely risky operation for kids who have consulted minimally with their parents, but the surreal majesty of deepwater exploration is not to be missed. Project: Submarine is the most evocative story of this collection.
The third adventure, The Hidden Door, appeals to the common fantasy that old buildings might contain secret passageways which lead to surprising places. Dylan stumbles upon a concealed door at the local library one afternoon, and persuades his friends to investigate with him after he finds an antique silver dollar inside. The passageway leads to a system of tunnels and caves whose purpose the Adventure Club can only guess, but the caves are far from abandoned. Creatures live here that could give the clubsters nightmares for years. There has to be a reason for the network of tunnels behind the library walls, however; who would have built such an elaborate system? This mystery extends beyond the end of The Hidden Door, providing the Adventure Club incentive to further conquest not only for the rest of this book, but into the next one.
Ghost in the Graveyard is the titular short story, but the Adventure Club quickly becomes sidetracked from their original goal of finding an alternative route into the tunnels beneath the library. Stymied by the three nasty Martin brothers, the clubsters plot to scare them into submission by rigging an elaborate haunting at the old graveyard on Devil's Ridge. When the Martin brothers go camping there, they'll receive the scare of their lives and never want to mess with the Adventure Club again. Most of this story's details are the planning and execution of the scarefest against the Martins, but there's a twist at the end that adds a little chill. One shouldn't be overly nonchalant when dealing with phantoms.
Finally, we have Flight of the Falcon, which is the best story of this book not so much for the narrative action as for the mildly poignant piece at the end. Similar to what they did with the submarine, the Adventure Club designs and builds a functional aircraft, for incredibly low cost. The labor and engineering go well and the Falcon takes flight, but the clubsters don't reckon on what the wind will do to their flying machine. The inaugural flight spins totally out of control as Lyle and Holly are carried much higher than is safe, careering all over Great Bear Heart as their friends pursue on bicycle. It's a life-threatening crisis, but Shane, ever a brave and intelligent leader, steps up to coordinate a harmless landing. The Adventure Club members aren't fools: they know they haven't exercised sufficient caution on a few occasions this summer, and are lucky none of them ended up hurt or worse. They're good at learning from mistakes, so I assume we'll have no more adventures as shockingly risky as the submarine and flying machine. But we will have more adventures in the next collection of stories, Ghost in the Grand. There's still the matter of a hidden treasure to be found...and our six heroes won't let up until they've solved the case.
"But man...what a fun summer it had been! Every day held the promise of something new and fun."
—Ghost in the Graveyard, P. 295
What kid doesn't dream of being part of something like the Adventure Club? Their exploits are beyond what most bright, resourceful kids could manage, because their skills harmonize so well and they readily volunteer them for the betterment of the club. It doesn't hurt that Shane, Holly, Dylan, Parker, Tony, and Lyle genuinely care about one another, either, close friends from day one. The summer they form the club, it doesn't take long to see that it's vastly superior to what most kids have, as Parker observes during the submarine excursion. "Right then, there was no place else I wanted to be. Video games and television now seemed so...so boring. And dull. This was where the real fun was. This was what the Adventure Club was all about." But the sweetness of childhood is evanescent, and Parker gets a glimpse of that reality as he and his friends laugh and celebrate at the end of this book. "I remembered what my dad had told me earlier in the year. He said to make sure that every day counts, because soon, they're going to fade away. Soon, Dad said, our club wouldn't be able to get together once a week and have the kind of adventures we were having. In time, he said, we'd all be grown-ups, and have our own families and jobs and responsibilities and bills to pay, and all that. Our priorities would change, he said, and life would be very different than it is today. He said I would change when I grew older, that we all would change. Our Adventure Club would be something we would look back on and smile—and that the club wouldn't last forever. And maybe Dad was right. But all of that would come later. Right now, I had five great friends; friends that you just don't find anywhere." That's the best writing I've seen from Johnathan Rand, and it surprised me. It makes us hold the Adventure Club a little nearer and dearer, and appreciate our youth while we have it. One could say childhood is our own unique adventure club, for each of us. Make of it what you will.
This book is arguably better than the more well-known Chillers series, and I'd give it at least two stars. My heart pleads for two and a half, but my head says no. This is a good juvenile novel with more depth than most of Johnathan Rand's work, and if you can get past the unconventional writing fundamentals, I think you'll like it. I'm a fan of the Adventure Club, and I look forward to their next batch of exciting undertakings.
Parker and his quintet of pals seek a modicum of sweet payback against local news journalist Norm Beeblemeyer as our first story, Bigfoot Runs Amok, opens. Norm is an annoyance to the Great Bear Heart community at large, and the Adventure Club aims to put him in his place. What better way to humble the cocky reporter than tricking him into believing he's found the trail of Bigfoot, legendary creature of the American Northwest? A pair of plastic monster paws is all that's needed to set Norm agog at the prospect of locating Bigfoot, but the Adventure Club didn't count on the entire community believing the scam. Now everyone in Great Bear Heart is after Bigfoot, but the club members take it in stride, cleverly capitalizing on the fad. Why not pad the club's bank account while the townspeople excitedly search for Bigfoot? The hoax can't last forever, but if they're smart, the Adventure Club can exact payback on Norm without their own part in the Bigfoot charade being revealed. Methinks they are plenty sly to come out ahead in their first major escapade.
Project: Submarine is the next story, and it's similar in tone and content to parts of Aliens Attack Alpena from the Michigan Chillers series. When Lyle spots a rusted old submarine in Franklin's Junkyard, the idea of making it seaworthy again seems farfetched, but not for the Adventure Club. Improbably, and after many hours of meticulous labor and research, the submarine is patched up and set adrift in Puckett Lake. The undersea vessel actually works, and the Adventure Club dives below the surface in it to see sights no human ever has. It's a wondrous aquatic world down there, and only grows more exotic as they move deeper. Going hundreds of feet underwater is an extremely risky operation for kids who have consulted minimally with their parents, but the surreal majesty of deepwater exploration is not to be missed. Project: Submarine is the most evocative story of this collection.
The third adventure, The Hidden Door, appeals to the common fantasy that old buildings might contain secret passageways which lead to surprising places. Dylan stumbles upon a concealed door at the local library one afternoon, and persuades his friends to investigate with him after he finds an antique silver dollar inside. The passageway leads to a system of tunnels and caves whose purpose the Adventure Club can only guess, but the caves are far from abandoned. Creatures live here that could give the clubsters nightmares for years. There has to be a reason for the network of tunnels behind the library walls, however; who would have built such an elaborate system? This mystery extends beyond the end of The Hidden Door, providing the Adventure Club incentive to further conquest not only for the rest of this book, but into the next one.
Ghost in the Graveyard is the titular short story, but the Adventure Club quickly becomes sidetracked from their original goal of finding an alternative route into the tunnels beneath the library. Stymied by the three nasty Martin brothers, the clubsters plot to scare them into submission by rigging an elaborate haunting at the old graveyard on Devil's Ridge. When the Martin brothers go camping there, they'll receive the scare of their lives and never want to mess with the Adventure Club again. Most of this story's details are the planning and execution of the scarefest against the Martins, but there's a twist at the end that adds a little chill. One shouldn't be overly nonchalant when dealing with phantoms.
Finally, we have Flight of the Falcon, which is the best story of this book not so much for the narrative action as for the mildly poignant piece at the end. Similar to what they did with the submarine, the Adventure Club designs and builds a functional aircraft, for incredibly low cost. The labor and engineering go well and the Falcon takes flight, but the clubsters don't reckon on what the wind will do to their flying machine. The inaugural flight spins totally out of control as Lyle and Holly are carried much higher than is safe, careering all over Great Bear Heart as their friends pursue on bicycle. It's a life-threatening crisis, but Shane, ever a brave and intelligent leader, steps up to coordinate a harmless landing. The Adventure Club members aren't fools: they know they haven't exercised sufficient caution on a few occasions this summer, and are lucky none of them ended up hurt or worse. They're good at learning from mistakes, so I assume we'll have no more adventures as shockingly risky as the submarine and flying machine. But we will have more adventures in the next collection of stories, Ghost in the Grand. There's still the matter of a hidden treasure to be found...and our six heroes won't let up until they've solved the case.
"But man...what a fun summer it had been! Every day held the promise of something new and fun."
—Ghost in the Graveyard, P. 295
What kid doesn't dream of being part of something like the Adventure Club? Their exploits are beyond what most bright, resourceful kids could manage, because their skills harmonize so well and they readily volunteer them for the betterment of the club. It doesn't hurt that Shane, Holly, Dylan, Parker, Tony, and Lyle genuinely care about one another, either, close friends from day one. The summer they form the club, it doesn't take long to see that it's vastly superior to what most kids have, as Parker observes during the submarine excursion. "Right then, there was no place else I wanted to be. Video games and television now seemed so...so boring. And dull. This was where the real fun was. This was what the Adventure Club was all about." But the sweetness of childhood is evanescent, and Parker gets a glimpse of that reality as he and his friends laugh and celebrate at the end of this book. "I remembered what my dad had told me earlier in the year. He said to make sure that every day counts, because soon, they're going to fade away. Soon, Dad said, our club wouldn't be able to get together once a week and have the kind of adventures we were having. In time, he said, we'd all be grown-ups, and have our own families and jobs and responsibilities and bills to pay, and all that. Our priorities would change, he said, and life would be very different than it is today. He said I would change when I grew older, that we all would change. Our Adventure Club would be something we would look back on and smile—and that the club wouldn't last forever. And maybe Dad was right. But all of that would come later. Right now, I had five great friends; friends that you just don't find anywhere." That's the best writing I've seen from Johnathan Rand, and it surprised me. It makes us hold the Adventure Club a little nearer and dearer, and appreciate our youth while we have it. One could say childhood is our own unique adventure club, for each of us. Make of it what you will.
This book is arguably better than the more well-known Chillers series, and I'd give it at least two stars. My heart pleads for two and a half, but my head says no. This is a good juvenile novel with more depth than most of Johnathan Rand's work, and if you can get past the unconventional writing fundamentals, I think you'll like it. I'm a fan of the Adventure Club, and I look forward to their next batch of exciting undertakings.
July 28, 2022
The Adventure Club consists of 6 kids, the age range of 10 to 12, who live in a small town. It is summer vacation and they meet to have adventures. Five of their adventures are featured in this collection, starting from hoaxing a Bigfoot sighting, to building a two seater glider and being carried off by the wind. Between those stories, the club refurbishes a submarine, find a secret door in the old train depot slash library, and plays a ghost in the graveyard prank on the towns bullies. The adventures of this club are not your typical adventures, this book puts the reader in some really neat situations, feeling the anticipation of what is coming. There are laugh out loud moments that keep things light.
The characters are Inventive, putting the work and research behind a project, and show ways to work together. I like this book because of that, that whatever the story is - farfetched or mysterious- the characters have traits that are good to have and are encouraging.
More adventures await....
The characters are Inventive, putting the work and research behind a project, and show ways to work together. I like this book because of that, that whatever the story is - farfetched or mysterious- the characters have traits that are good to have and are encouraging.
More adventures await....
November 4, 2020
Ghost in the Grand is a wonderful mystery book that has a great plot and a great pace as well my favorite character is Shane cause he is a good leader for the adventure club. the writing style is really well done and the book's stories are all smoothly connected. Over all this was a great book and will definitely read it again, and I would recommend it to all of the kids that are into mystery books.
October 30, 2023
i thought this was a young adult book but it's actually a children's book! i read this when i was younger and i thought the characters were in high school but they are actually in elementary! 2.5, a good book just felt like it was too young for me (:
September 14, 2021
When I was their age my friends were all cripplingly depressed and banging each other. We never tried to fight ghosts!
June 20, 2024
Loved the 5 stories and how they all tied together.
December 7, 2011
9/21/11
I just got this book from the library. I got it because I read the second one, of theese books and it was a great book.And because the auther is my favorite auhter.I have read two pages in this book. So far it is a good book I like this searees.
I just got this book from the library. I got it because I read the second one, of theese books and it was a great book.And because the auther is my favorite auhter.I have read two pages in this book. So far it is a good book I like this searees.
October 5, 2012
Awesome!
July 1, 2016
One of my favorite books every.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews