Scareground

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

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What’s Scareground About?

Nancy’s an adventuresome girl who helps in her (adoptive) parents’ bakery. There’s something about her that puts most children off—but on the whole, she enjoys her life—and gets up to a lot of mischief by running all over the rooftops of the small town she lives in. (she seems a little young, and historically early to practice Parkour, but really that’s what she does).

Through her antics, she has managed to make one friend, Arthur. Arthur’s father is overprotective due to his mother’s death and keeps a short leash on his son. But these two find ways to stretch the leash and have fun together.

Some strange things start happening in their town, pointing to the arrival of a fair. There’s no way that either of them will be permitted to attend, but they’re determined to have a look. It seems fun enough, it’s something that doesn’t happen often (not in their lifetimes, anyway), and they’ve been forbidden by their parents. For pre-teen Middle-Grade characters, you know that means they’ll sneak into it and get into adventures. Nancy has another reason to go—but she can’t bring herself to tell Arthur—she’s pretty sure that she’ll learn something about the circumstances around her parents leaving her to be found and taken in by the Crumpets.

And they do sneak in, they do get into adventures—most of which are far beyond what they could’ve imagined. The fair—the Scareground—is much more than a typical traveling fair.

Kecojevic’s Language

There’s something about the language—particularly a couple of word choices—that bothered me. A few words (like “macabre,” and “maritime”) are used perhaps too often. It feels like someone learned a new word and was trying to squeeze it in as often as possible. I obviously don’t think that’s what happened—it just feels that way.

Aside from that, the vocabulary and phrasing do strike me as someone trying to capture or create a mood—a feel to the book. One that’s reminiscent of a fairy tale or a story from another time. I don’t know that Kecojevic was entirely successful at it, however. But you can’t help but see that’s what she was going for, and it adds just the right amount of whimsy to enliven this story and the characters (Nancy in particular).

So, what did I think about Scareground?

As many good things that were in the book, several little choices that Kecojevic made added up—like the final words of the prologue which were an over-the-top threat delivered to no one at all just so the villain could monologue for a bit—and almost makes this book die a death of a thousand cuts. Please note the “almost” there. Thinking back to the prologue—you snip that monologue and you’ve got a nice, disturbing introduction to the book.

The book works well if you take it on the surface, enjoy Nancy and Arthur—and the friends they make along the way—and get caught up in the story and the strange world it takes place in. If you think about many aspects too much, it doesn’t hold up too well. It’s not a house of cards by any means, but maybe balsa wood.

Or, come to think of it—think of this as a carnival ride or fair attraction. That’s appropriate, right? It might be a spooky ride through a house of horrors, it might be an exciting-looking roller coaster, or it might be a pretty carousel—but if you look behind the curtain, or too closely at the structure, or spend too much time looking at the paint job on the horses or the lighting fixtures, and it’s less impressive.

Thankfully, you’re not going to find a lot of the target audience dwelling on aspects—they’re going to be in it for the ride. Which, getting back to my main point—works well when you take Scareground that way.

Nancy and Arthur are a whole lot of fun. The Crumpets are a delightful couple and the kind of parents (biological or not) that you want to see in fiction. And so many other characters could be talked about in this way. Nancy’s extra abilities are a wonderful, imaginative touch—but so is her heart and drive. Arthur matches that heart and drive without her abilities, and it’s their friendship that makes a lot of this work.

It’s a fast and strange ride that will entertain, for sure. I recommend it to readers of the right age.