Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones
You can’t reach into a YA bookshelf these days without risking zombie infection, but Krovatin has done something fairly unusual here. It’s not some tweak on zombie rules; rather, it’s a seriousness rarely seen in zombie books for this age range. A nature program in the Montana mountains goes awry when 11-year-olds Ian (the wild one), Kendra (the brain), and PJ (the geek) get lost, cross over a forboding stone fence covered with painted sigils, and take refuge inside a cabin where they find a book labeled “READ ME TO LIVE.” Enter the zombies—the hungry corpses of a lost dance troupe called the Pine City Dancers—who shamble after our trio as they hunt for the alleged witch who began this curse. One part wilderness survival story and one part grueling horror, Krovatin’s text lends the characters and events just enough realism to give the plot a welcome weight, without entirely sacrificing the middle-grade attitude (“I think I see a bone sticking out of it, yeech”). A clever opener to what looks to be a series. Grades 6-9. --Daniel Kraus