In what is presumably the first in a new I Can Read! series, a seasoned creator of easy-to-read mysteries introduces a skeleton investigative journalist. After a pair of spooked spooks report unusual noises coming from their cellar, Dirk Bones investigates, tracking the clack, cluckity-cluck bing, blub, blub to a surprising source. Young readers will relish both the carefully contained moments of tension and the contrasting elements of whimsy, as the town of Ghostly's ghoulish residents reveal unexpectedly benign natures. Having said that, Cushman's bony hero isn't quite as winning; his trenchcoat and rakish fedora never quite compensate for the vacant expression about his eye sockets. Still, all but the most easily scared children will follow the manageable declarative sentences to the end, where a gently amusing resolution to the mystery awaits. The book doesn't expressly mention Halloween, but its setting will especially suit the witching time of year.

K-Gr 2-Dirk Bones, a skeleton newspaper reporter for The Ghostly Tombs, is dispatched to a haunted house on Ghoul Street, where the residents complain about spooky noises coming from their cellar. Dirk's investigation leads him to the nearby graveyard, where the sounds are traced to a crypt containing a bubbling soup pot and a vampire who is writing a cookbook. Cushman's illustrations are delightfully silly and spirited; his hilarious plot will please youngsters who often claim that they want horror but are relieved to get humor instead. This title has more sentences per page and more sophisticated puns than the usual "Level 1" reader. However, librarians, whose focus is not exclusively decoding, will welcome this addition to the primer shelves both at Halloween time and throughout the year.-Gloria Koster, West School, New Canaan, CT Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

The creator of Aunt Eater and Inspector Hopper opens a new easy-reader series featuring an even less conventional sleuth. Two specters haunting a house in the aptly named town of Ghostly are frightened by mysterious, un-ghostly clackings and clickings. Enter Dirk Bones, skeletal investigative journalist for the Ghostly Tombs. Properly outfitted in trench coat and green fedora, Bones sets out into a stormy night on a successful investigation that takes him from creepy basement to spooky graveyard, and includes encounters with a terrified werewolf, a vampire Emeril wannabe and other typical town residents—all easily recognizable but decidedly non-menacing figures in the cartoon illustrations. A burbling cauldron of "bat foot stew with crispy worm brains" is but one of the shivery delights that await emergent readers in this not- too -creepy caper. Stay tuned for sequels. (Easy reader. 6-8)