I'm thrilled to feature another spooktacular book, perfect for Halloween time, today! Plus, Derek the Ghost stops by with a fun guest post and awesome giveaway...
Zillions of Zombies
(Scary School #4)
by Derek the Ghost
Sept. 1, 2015
After defeating the fearsome Ice Dragon, the students of Scary School were in full celebration mode with an awesome parade leading up to the Dance of Destiny. But when a bearodactyl snatches Charles Nukid and flies him to Monster Kingdom, his friends have to figure out a way to rescue him before he's served as lunch to one of the kingdom's horrifying creatures. Little do his friends know that he's actually been taken there to be crowned the next monster king after defeating King Zog in battle. But no sooner is he crowned than he is challenged by Turlock the Troll. While trying to avoid getting crushed by Turlock's crew, one of them breaks the Zombie Control Lever, which was keeping all the zombies of the world good and not ravenous for brains. Charles's friends arrive in the nick of time after barely surviving a zombie attack at Scary School. Reunited, they now have to find the one unicorn in existence whose magic is powerful enough to turn all the zombies back to good before every monster and human alike are turned into the mindless brain-eating dead.
Other books in the Scary School series
(click cover to learn more)
Praise for Scary School
"I died laughing!"- Dan Gutman
"A laugh-out-loud offering that should find a broad and appreciative audience among boys and girls alike." - Kara Dean, Booklist
"The book was downright funny to the point of me wetting myself!" - Annemarie Ager, Best Books
"Scary School achieves a new level of awesome." - Ricochet Reviews
"What a great comic storytelling talent Derek the Ghost is. I wish he’d been around when I was a kid. School would have been a lot more fun! - Charles Busch, author and star of Psycho Beach Party
"Spooky, ooky, and kooky! Scary School reminds me of my middle school!" -Chris Grabenstein, award-winning author of The Haunted Mystery series
"Everything is so funny...a perfect book for getting ready for school." -KidsReads
Fresh from their victory over the Ice Dragon, the students at Scary School are ready to celebrate at the Dance of Destiny. But before the festivities even begin, Charles Nukid is grabbed by a bearodactyl and taken to Monster Kingdom...not to be eaten, but to be crowned their new king. Meanwhile, back at Scary School, the dance is interrupted by zombies. Zillions of very hungry, recently turned bad zombies! Charles’ classmates must find a way to save their friend AND hold back the hordes of killer zombies. When Charles and his friends are reunited, they learn that they must find the one real unicorn and convince him to hand over his horn, in order to turn the zombies back to good. Can the Scary School kids save the day? Will Charles let his power go to his head? Will Dr. Dragobreath eat one of your favorite characters?!
Derek The Ghost (aka Derek Kent) returns to his rollicking, wildly entertaining middle-grade Scary School series with the fourth and final book, Zillions of Zombies. Like books one, two and three, Zillions of Zombies is full of Derek’s signature outrageous humor, frightfully fun storylines, spooktacular settings, and one of a kind characters.
Young readers will be delighted by the thrills, twists, and side-splitting laughs found on every page of Zillions of Zombies! The age-appropriate, yet completely amusing and wickedly exciting, scares are a fun mix of funhouse whimsy, haunted house spooks, and sideshow marvels. Both Scary School itself and the realm of the Monster Kingdom, make for deliciously creepy and endlessly fascinating settings. With fast-paced, captivating storytelling, Zillions of Zombies is a real page-turner!
One of the things I love most about this series, is all the unforgettable and charming characters! From dragons, wolfboys, flower-girls, a talking T. Rex, vampires, trolls, evil dolls, mythological legends, and everything in between, Zillions of Zombies is bursting with engaging, fantastical characters for readers to enjoy.
As the final book in the Scary School series, Zillions of Zombies offers a wonderfully satisfying and cheer-worthy ending that fans will appreciate and love.
my final thoughts: This has quickly become one of my favorite middle-grade series and, even though I’m sad to see it end, it couldn’t have concluded with a better final book. Fans of the series will definitely be happy with Zillions of Zombies and new readers have a wonderful fourth book to look forward to!
MY RATING
5/5 yummy cupcakes
DEREK THE GHOST’S
TEN MOST SURPRISING WAYS TO SURVIVE A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
Hello folks! This is your favorite 11-year-old “ghost writer”, Derek the Ghost. If you’ve been reading my book series Scary School, you’ll know that the students are used to all sorts of horrors on a daily basis, from a dragon teacher that eats his students, to Archie the Giant Squid in the school moat, to an invasion by an army of karate monsters. But nothing compares to what they go through in the latest and final book in the series, Scary School #4: Zillions of Zombies.
Myself and all the students learned all the tricks of the trade to surviving a zombie apocalypse, so now I’d like to share some with you. For more info on zombies and all my books, feel free to visit ScarySchool.com or DerekTaylorKent.com. Happy reading!
10. Walls never work as well as you think. Remember in World War Z when the zombies formed a huge pile of themselves to climb over the walls in Jerusalem? There are all sorts of ways to get over, under, and through walls that zombies are really good at. In Scary School #4, my sister Jacqueline builds a wall out of the wood from her haunted house. It lasts a while, but eventually the persistent zombies find a way through and we were in BIG trouble. Best to stay out in the open because if zombie’s bust through a wall, you’ll be trapped with no chance of escape! 
9. Don’t ever trust a dead zombie. Have you ever seen a show where there’s a zombie corpse lying motionless on the ground. Then one of the characters starts dancing around it or kicking it for no good reason, only to have it come back to life and bite them on the leg? That’s literally a zombie’s favorite game to play. They play possum to draw you close then CHOMP. Assume all zombies are still alive and stay at least twenty to thirty feet away from the at all times. Remember, zombies don’t ever die. That’s their whole thing.
8. Don’t open window blinds. Ever seen a movie when people are locked up in a house. They start hearing pounding on the walls and windows. They open the blinds and hundreds of zombies are there! Moments later they break through the window and pour inside. Duh! They did that because they had confirmation you were in there when you opened the blinds, silly characters. If you had ignored them, they probably would have moved on to the next house.
7. Give ‘em a job! The reason zombies do nothing but wander around in search of brains is because they have nothing better to do. That’s because it’s very hard to get a job as a Zombie-American. Employers just don’t want to hire someone who might bite their co-workers, scare customers away, and can only say “braaaains.” That’s why Scary School takes pride in hiring zombies to be its wait staff in the lunch hall. The work keeps their minds focused and off of eating the students’ brains. Want to stave off a zombie apocalypse? Hire a zombie! 
6. If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em. It’s true that zombies get a lot of flack for being gross, decaying, evil, and dead. But many in the Scary School community deem that to be an unfair assessment. Most would point to Ramon Fernandez, one of the most popular kids at Scary School and gold-medalist in skateboarding, snowboarding and sky-surfing. Oh, and did I mentioned he’s a zombie kid? The fact that he’s already dead makes him fearless in all extreme sports, which gives him the edge he needs to become a champion. He would like everyone to know that there’s nothing wrong with being a zombie, though having friends around to help put you back together when your limbs fall off is helpful. Best way to survive a zombie might just be to become a zombie. It’s not for a everyone, but it’s a perfectly acceptable option.
5. Play some one on one. It’s a lesser-known fact that zombies love basketball. Their zombie-ness makes them all “dead-on” shots and they will drain three-pointers on you all day if you give them an inch. If a zombie is chasing you, do your best to run to the nearest basketball court. Then challenge them to a game of one-on-one. Make a deal that if you win, they have to leave you alone. Note: I would only use this strategy if you are an NBA-level hoops star.
4. Tell them a joke. Zombies have great senses of humor. It’s a common misconception that they are always in a bad mood and starving for flesh and brains. I mean, who isn’t cranky when they’re hungry. Sometimes a funny joke is exactly what a zombie needs to snap him out of his hunger-crazed attack. For instance, one time a zombie had cornered me, so I said, “What’s a zombie’s favorite toy? A deady bear!” The zombie laughed so hard that his jaw fell off. With no jaw he couldn’t bite me and I was home free.
3. Walk the walk. Zombies are not the most observant monsters. The weird shuffling “zombie-walk” is the only way they can tell the difference between themselves and the living. Perfect your best zombie walk (arms out is optional) and you can easily blend in during a time of crisis. But be careful, one skip or smooth move and they’ll be on you like flies on rotting meat.
2. Watch Bruce Lee movies. Did you know that martial arts was originally created to fend off zombie attacks? It’s true! Watch karate master Bruce Lee and copy all of his kicks and punches. Use the deadly arts only in the worst case scenario when a zombie is about to bite you. Local ninja girl/Scary School student, Lattie, likes to bounce off their heads and deliver swift helicopter kicks whenever her or her friends are in trouble. Hi-ya!
- All they need is love. Like everyone else in the world, all a zombie really wants, even more than brains, is a little bit of love. Not to give anything away, but in Scary School #4, the zillions of zombies attacking can be traced back to one incident when a zombie was rejected at the school dance. Perhaps giving a zombie a kiss on the cheek is all that’s needed to turn them back to good?
Derek is an eleven-year-old ghost who haunts the classrooms and hallways of Scary School, writing down all the spine-tingling often hilarious things that go on there. Despite his ghostly state, Derek still enjoys reading comic books and hopes to one day become a master ninja. If that doesn’t work out, he will continue to share the fun of this very special, very secret school, so all kids can experience the scariest school on earth. Derek the Ghost communicates through the first-time ghost whisperer Derek Taylor Kent, who is a writer and performer in Los Angeles, California.
Win a copy of Scary School #1!
Derek has generously offered one paperback or ebook copy (winner's choice) of the first book in his Scary School series, to one winner.
DETAILS
-US only
-ends 10/16
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OH MY GOSH!! This looks like an epic book!! I hope I win! I have very big readers in my family including me. I would love to add this to my bookshelf. Well, okay my nephews!
ReplyDeleteGreat review! And wow! This book really does look like it has unforgettable characters and not to mentions sound really fun! Would really love to read this one!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the review! I also loved the entire series and so do reluctant readers. If your readers don't win here come on over to my blog for a chance to win all four books (gpattridge.com)
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