Presenting the Halloween edition of the Jacket Flap-a-thon…

5. The Gollywhopper Games (Greenwillow Books): “Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Welcome to the biggest, bravest, boldest competition the world has ever seen! The Gollywhopper Games! Are you ready? Gil Goodson sure hopes he’s ready. His future happiness depends on winning the Golly Toy & Game Company’s ultimate competition. If Gil wins, his dad promised the family can move out of Orchard Heights — away from all the gossip, the false friends, the bad press that have plagued the Goodsons ever since The Incident. Gil’s been studying for months. He thinks he knows everything about Golly’s history and merchandise. But does he know enough to answer the trivia? Solve the puzzles? Complete the stunts? Will it be more than all the other kids know? Gil’s formidable opponents have their own special talents. He must be quicker and smarter than all of them. The ride of Gil’s life is about to begin. Win! Win! Win!”
Aside from the cloying “Win!Win!Win!” at the end, it’s a pretty good blurb, getting readers geared up for the fun ride that the book is.

4. Frankenstein (Signet Classics): “The story of Victor Frankenstein and of the monstrous creature he created has held readers spellbound ever since it was published almost two centuries ago. On the surface, it is a novel of tense and steadily mounting horror; but on a more profound level, it offers searching illumination of the human condition in its portrayal of a scientist who oversteps the bounds of conscience, and of a monster brought to life in an alien world, ever more desperately attempting to escape the torture of his solitude. A novel of hallucinatory intensity, Frankenstein represents one of the most striking flowerings of the Romantic imagination.”
Short, to the point, and intriguing.

3. Diamond Willow (Frances Foster Books): “Twelve-year-old Willow would rather blend in than stick out. But she still wants to be seen for who she is. She wants her parents to notice that she is growing up. She wants her best friend to like her better than she likes a certain boy. She wants, more than anything, to mush the dogs out to her grandparents’ house, by herself, with Roxy in the lead. But sometimes when it’s just you, one mistake can have frightening consequences . . . And when Willow stumbles, it takes a surprising group of friends to help her make things right again.”
A hard novel to write a blurb for, but I think they did a pretty good job capturing at least the essence of the story.

2. Coraline (Harper Collins): “In Corlaine’s family’s new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only it’s different…. At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there’s another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Other children are trapped there aw well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself. Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.”
Good. Creepy. And makes me want to read the book. (How does she get out?)

1. The Call of the Wild (Simon and Schuster): “Buck lived the happy, comfortable life of a pet in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. But when one of the garden workers brings him to the train station and sells him, his whole life changes. Buck is caged and forced to travel by train — without food or water — to the frozen North. When he arrives, he is full of fury. But a man with a club shows Buck who’s boss, and Buck has no choice but to obey. So begins the story of a dog taken from his home and master, and forced to learn the ropes as a sled dog in the tough, frozen world of the Klondike gold rush. Unaccustomed to the savage, unruly ways of the North, Buck learns by trial and error. But his spirit is unbreakable, and he grows strong in the wilderness. From one master to another, Buck thrives on hard work and discipline, becoming a lead dog on the team. He toils long and hard, keeping the other dogs in line. He remembers his easy life in California, bu this new life stirs up ancient instincts, and Buck knows that he belongs in the wild. With vivid, passionate details of the North, Jack London tells the classic story of a sled dog during the 1900 Alaskan gold rush. An introduction by award-winning author Gary Paulsen and realistic, evocative illustrations by Bary Moser make this edition of The Call of the Wild one to be treasured for generations to come.”
A bit long, but evocative. Granted, it tells you pretty much the whole story (at least a good part of it), but in this case it actually helps rather than hurts.

The One Worst:
Sense and Sensibility (QPBC): “Perhaps the most affecting and accomplished of Jane Austen’s novels, Sense and Sensibility (which grew out of an adolescent sketch “Elinor and Marianne”) tells the story of two sisters, polar opposites Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, whose hopes of marrying well are smashed when their family’s estate is left to an arrogant stepson upon the death of their father. Thus pauperized, the practical, almost prissy Elinor (the “sense” of the duo) sets out to hide her deep affection for her brother-in-law, pained at the fact that they cannot marry. But when younger Marianne, indulging her almost hedonistic pursuit of passion, becomes infatuated with a dashing rogue, her clamorous spirit threatens to blind her to a more lasting and genuine love. Delicately piercing and exquisite in its irony, Sense and Sensibility — Austen’s first published novel — is a profound examination of two sisters who discover the limits of both mind and the heart.”
Okay, it’s not that bad (it is accurate after all)… but it is a bit chatty for Jane Austen, and calling Elinor prissy?! C’mon.