Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

The first thing to know is that there is one out-of-place, unfortunate part in this book where boys begin talking about rumors around a condemned building. They call it haunted. They then go on to say there is a rumor a man “cut up his wife with a chainsaw” in it. Another rumor says a railroad spike was pounded into her skull. Then when a dog died in the building there was a rumor the evil spirit now lives in the house. Finally a school teacher was said to have moved in and was never heard of again. This content is so out of sorts with the rest of the book, but its inclusion should give parents a real pause for concern here when considering this book. The more broad major concern here is around the main mission of the book. We often see kids have to sneak out on important missions and hide their plans in books. This one brings up an oh-so-common modern “moral grey area” that runs throughout the book. A terrible, immoral man tricks the main character out of something uber value. The quest for the rest of the book is to break in and steal it back, recruiting some help along the way. Now the author tries to swing this back by showing us that ultimately the main character wants to do something really good, save his family’s house. He also has been totally wronged. But at the end of the day, this book revolves around stealing something back that you were tricked out of. The worst of these comments tells young readers, “sometimes it takes an act of thievery to stop a thief”. Other Potential Concerns: The terms jerk and shut up are used. A few random cutdowns, such as “you are a pimple”, “big fat head”, “sort of stupid also appear.