City of the Dead

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.

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.