City of the Dead

Description

232 pages
$9.95
ISBN 0-88995-229-9
DDC C813'.54

Publisher

Year

2001

Contributor

Reviewed by Sylvia Pantaleo

Sylvia Pantaleo is an assistant professor of education specializing in
children’s literature at the University of Victoria. She is the
co-author of Learning with Literature in the Canadian Elementary
Classroom.

Review

City of the Dead is a collection of 10 short stories that deal with the
supernatural. In the first selection, “Dog Days,” the appearance of
a stray dog who “adopts” new owners who die shortly afterward and
the opening of a new funeral home seem more than a coincidence to Marc,
the narrator of the story. Four of the stories involve computers: Kevin
downloads a game from the Internet and has to battle an
“electrifying” opponent; Linda names the creature that invades her
computer “Dingbat,” but becomes her friend; Tiffany participates in
a game called “Lucky Seven” and, in the end, pays the ultimate price
for the “free stuff” she requests; and a virus in a screen saver
causes the images to become virtual. Other stories involve a phone call
from a deceased person, a mysterious Christmas village, a teenager who
transforms into a wolflike creature, and an enchanted fishing pool. In
the title story, a Sphinx replica saves the life of a street person,
thereby breaking the curse that has trapped a soul inside the statue.

There is a balance of female and male protagonists in the well-written,
fast-paced and engaging stories, and the characterization is strong.
Many of the stories are open-ended, leaving the reader to imagine future
events. Highly recommended.

Citation

Stewart, Sharon., “City of the Dead,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed October 10, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/20800.