Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

The big thing to know is that there is so, so much ghost-related content. Even worse, this leads to a lot of the quasi-spiritual content that at its core is very misleading to the truths that God has revealed. We will start by sharing this content: When one of the main characters Ignacio dies, he sees a white tunnel ending at a door where he hears the sounds of a huge party. When he arrives at the door he hears, “Not so fast! You definitely do not deserve to come to this party”. He responds that “I was not a bad man”. It goes on to offer, “Prove you’re not completely rotten and we’ll let you in. If not, you’ll be trapped forever in the place where you died. Alone and invisible for all of eternity”. (note: this isn’t misguided, but also dangerous. Thinking of Heaven as some worldly party, totally devoid of our creator and entry to it being for anyone who just ‘isn’t completely rotten’ couldn’t be more dangerous). When Ignacio first appears to his grandson, he wonders if he is a serial killer or zombie. He adds that he is “reasonably sure I wasn’t going about to get strangled by a maniac”. Benny asks Ignacio, “Shouldn’t you be in heaven with a harp or something?” Benny hopes that “maybe I’d absorbed some of his Ramirez magic just from being so close to his spirit”. Later Benny summarizes their mission by saying that “If he succeeds in helping me be a star he’ll earn his wings” and “Grandpa is trying to earn his way into his heavenly party”. When upset with grandpa he also says, “If abuelo was as great as I had believed, he wouldn’t have been locked out of heaven”. He also worries, “What if I cost you the afterlife?” to which Ignacio replies, “What is one more party when I’ve been to so many?” (such misleading, dangerous and misguided thinking!). Someone comes to visit Ignacio and says, “Heaven itself sent me”. We hear a reference to “trumpet playing poltergeist”. A sound is described as being like “a demon elephant that had been surprised”. Someone also says, “haunted like a possessed fish stick” and “ghost zombies eating your brains”. Someone is said to be “walking around like a zombie”. The whole topic above really jumps to a new concern level when Ignacio basically "possesses" him and begins expertly playing trumped through him. This is presented “lightly”, but that really makes it even worse. This ends up happening multiple times during the book. This gets referred to in ways like Benny asking him to “inhabit my body”. For much of the early part of the book the siblings interactions are negative. The book starts with a lot of bickering. The sister Christina tells her brothers, “I’ll be so glad when I’m not stuck with you cavemen”. We hear the unfortunate comment about her, “She’s had such an attitude since turning thirteen”. The main character Benny is very frequently dishonest and the book never really indicates this as a much of a negative thing. While worrying about fitting in at a new magnet school Benny thinks through a whole string of lies to explain his lack of artistic skills. He is dishonest to a teacher. When startled he says he was “too startled to think of a good lie”. He also lies frequently to hide what is going on with Grandpa. The younger brother Manny loves memorizing movie scripts. The example the author chose to use up and bring up many times throughout the book? “Little Shop of Horrors”. So, there’s that. He also spends a large portion of the book being extremely odd, literally acting like a cat (both coping after a hard move and to research a role). While he eventually grows, Ignacio is extremely conceited and inwardly focused for the majority of the book. Benny’s new friend is a girl who is almost obsessed with dark things. She says, “I like to write about ghosts, supernatural stuff”. Her play is titled, “The Haunted Lunchroom”. She says that her house is haunted. She tells Benny, “I’m a born ghost hunter” adding, “I can totally sense when a ghost is present”. At one point she shares, “I think a murder may have been committed in this room”. She explains, “So many poems are about ghosts, goblins, spooky things. I feel like it (poetry) will be perfect for me, you know?... Like there’s this one where this guy obsesses about his dead wife and is haunted by a creepy raven”. Her house has several black and white horror movie posters. She brings home flowers to “let any spirits know I welcome them”. Some longer dialogue around her “proof’ of why she thinks there are ghosts in the apartment. The author’s bio confusingly uses “they” to refer to himself when singular. Here are a few other things we wanted to mention: Christina informs the young readers that “anybody who’s anybody in the arts needs to be on social media”. There is a bit of joking and making light of a divorce. “You give that woman an inch, she’ll take half the residual income from your first record!”. A song book is called “the Bible” for trumpet players. Adults have alcohol at a party and we hear a reference to a “Pint of ale”. Benny’s grandmother is said to be a huge pro wrestling fan. The following terms are used: butt ugly, jerk, oh my God The following are referenced: animes, Footloose, VR, santa claus, manga