This story was great from start to end. Focusing on two younger boys, considered the outcasts of their grade wanting to sneak into their school at night to find some hidden treasure. The story itself is targeted towards a younger audience. Most likely the same age as the characters. High elementary or lower middle. That being said, I still enjoyed the story a lot.

Because of the age demographic, writing a horror story can be very hard. You don't want it to be too scary or you'll traumatise the kids. The authors do a great job of filling the story with lots of jokes and combatting any of the scary factors of the story with the colour palate used. That being said, I loved the colours used for the story. It reminded me a lot of the Halloween Town movies. Very whimsical and kid friendly, while still holding onto enough of a spooky factor for the kids.

The story itself started off a bit slow. The first 10 pages didn't have much going on, but I contribute to that to building some suspense. The story really starts getting interesting once they sneak into the school, which makes sense. After all, what kid hasn't dreamed of sneaking into their school at night. From their the story is fast paced, always interesting, and action packed with the ghosts. Its nice to see the characters check in with each other too as a means of slowing down the pace to give readers a breather.

It was also very easy to follow. The main focus of the story was the picture element. The illustrator did an amazing job of showing the emotions and direction of the plot through the pictures rather then focusing heavily on the words. There wasn't too much dialogue to follow which helped the comic be a quick read.

The main focus of the story was appreciating what you have and realizing you don't need money to feel fulfilled in life. This is a great life lesson for kids and was portrayed nicely through Blue's back story and want of the treasure. Now this may just be me being stupid, but I didn't figure out what the moral of the story was until 70% of the way through the story. There were little hints to it in the beginning with Blue needing the money for his mom but that was it. It would have been nicer if it was more apparent earlier on. Especially for a younger audience.

As for the characters, I'm not the biggest fan of how they were portrayed. I did enjoy them and think they were funny but would have liked more personality for them. They did come off stereotypical most of the time with Blue bring from a poor immigrant family and Herschel being the dumb fat kid who plays video games all day. There are times when Herschel says the most intelligent things and when he does it comes off very out of character and like the author is just trying to get information across and doesn't know how else to do it.

Another character I want to talk about is Madison. I loved her character. She seemed very fleshed out and her ambitions were a great plot twist to the story. That being said, she was the only adult in the comic. Even if I like her character and it made sense for her to be there, in retrospect it is kind of strange that an adult is doing all this with a group of kids. Her disappearing at the end is unsatisfying but makes a lot of sense. She shouldn't be hanging out with kids, especially after the events of the story.

Overall, despite the smaller issues I had with the characters, the story overall was very interesting to read, and the pacing with the panel size and colouring helped it be an easy and great read for a younger audience.

Man this one did not work for me. It is cute but is for a very young audience. The art is good but the story felt so contrived and the dialogue was painful at times. I am probably in the wrong headspace so please don't pass on this because of this review, but keep your expectations set for more of an elementary fare.

This book has a fun concept - two bullied buddies break into their school to hunt rumored treasure and are face with a group of protective ghosts. Overall though, I want each fan. What works - great art, fun ghostly back stories, a good moral. What I didn't really dig - over the top crass humor (I'm no delicate flower but the fart jokes were excessive), weird times jumps that didn't add to the story, and unlikable main characters. I think boys age ten or so might find good funny but it was a miss for me.

I appreciated that this book does a good job of being spooky but not graphic. I like that the ghost designs are a bit creepy sometimes- even if they are helpful characters. I do think the writing is a bit rough in the first 10ish pages- the characters didn't come off like real middle school students. However, once the treasure hunt started, the story really picked up. I do like how the book had discussions of financial issues without it feeling really morose. The art is bright and engaging.

Wonderful collaboration from Matthew Erman and Shelby Criswell. This was fun visual story — colorful and enjoyable for a wide range of readers, and a welcome addition to classroom shelves.

Despite liking the overall message (greed bad, friendship etc. good), I found this book a little disappointing. The plot was somewhat messy and the characters seemed more like charicatures than actual people.
Overall not something I'd read again.