Why Middle Schoolers Don’t Read More

Why do middle school students read? A more accurate question to posit would be why don’t middle school students read more? I praise those in sixth-through-eighth grade who willingly read as it’s more commonly done under duress. It’s the kind of torture or discomfort that’s normally reserved for vampires who are shown sunlight as they climb the ceiling like a spider trying to escape its deathly rays. They just want that dark corner of the room, with the squinty whites of their eyes attempting to burn a hole through your conversation-starting soul; before they can revert to their dark, sullen place, much like an early teen. My Mummy Vs. Your Ghost is also known as Versus Series book 2 and manages to pull a Superman 2, Lethal Weapon 2 or The Empire Strikes Back.   

That’s the rare entry in a series where the second one is better than the first one. Some cinemafiles might argue that Superman was a superior film to its sequel. However, for us, the sheer power of General Zod, Ursa and Non, plus the mirror-prison concept was so cool that even the cheesy aspect of Hackman’s Lex Luthor couldn’t water it down. My Vampire Vs. Your Werewolf was the first entry in the Verses Universe and it’s an impossible-to-resist concept.

There’s a secret league of monster trainers who operate in a world where the beasts are located, socialized with the modern world and then put into their own Thunderdome. It’s a mock-up of a small city where they use their unique powers to battle the other monster until the loser admits defeat. This way no monsters are actually killed, the losers have a chance to appear in future books and the book series is allowed to easily live in the MGLIT arena where overseeing parents or librarians might object to violence that’s too real.

Don’t mistake the non-fatal consequences in this non-fiction MGLIT book as an excuse for it to water down the thrills. Dystopian MGLIT is so 2008. My Mummy Vs. Your Ghost is younger-skewing MGLIT that isn’t afraid to smile and has a broader reach than some of its brooding, longer, more serious contemporaries. In reality, My Mummy Vs. Your Ghost could be considered a bridge book between upper-elementary readers who are very comfortable with graphic novels, but are intimidated by the thought of reading a book. It could also be thought up of as a fun, effortless read for those older people, say in high school or upper middle school who think that reading is only reserved for ceiling-dwelling vampires.

Nobody has ever seen a mummy or a ghost engage in combat. We don’t know what their powers would actually be, that’s why it’s fun to go along with author Paul Tobin as he spells out how the two monsters would enact punishment on one another. They both have the ability to make things around them very cold. Tobin does a great job in spelling out the specifics of that to age-appropriately terrifying degrees. The actual book doesn’t get colder, but your inability to put the book down increases. The chapters are around 15 pages each, with them getting shorter and shorter as the two monsters battle towards the end. By the 16^th chapter it’s eight pages long and builds to a page-turning climax that leaves readers guessing as to who the last monster standing until will be until the final ghostly, tattered and bony hand punches away.

Older readers will be asking themselves how they could be emotionally invested in a book about a fight between a mummy and a ghost that’s meant for younger audiences. Younger readers will be breathlessly reading the book and wondering if all books meant for MGLIT audiences are this good. They aren’t. However, a great place to start if that’s what either camp is thinking; is the first book in this series, as well as, Tobin’s other books, especially The Genius Factor series. My Mummy Vs. Your Ghost checks off any box that audiences, readers, educators or parents would have in their hypothetical list of why the book is for them. It is possible to put it down, and those young audiences will need to do so, but they’ll want to pick it up again-and read more about this monster fighting world.

My Mummy Vs. Your Ghost, The Versus Series #2, is by Paul Tobin and available on Bloomsbury Kids, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.

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