The Tanglewood Terror

Children's Literature - Sarah Maury Swan

There is a glowing fungus among us in Tanglewood and it threatens to take over the town, just as it had two hundred years earlier. Eric Parrish, thirteen, and Brian, his annoying nine-year-old brother, discover the weird looking mushroom in the woods behind their house. But it doesn't stay put in the woods; it steadily creeps into the town proper, popping up inside houses and through the paved streets. And this isn't the only problem Eric has to deal with. In addition to having to babysit Brian, other problems beset our erstwhile hero. His mostly absentee father comes home while Eric's mom is trying to find a runaway girl from the private school where she works. But mainly what Dad does is fight with Mom. The potbelly pig Eric looks after for a neighbor is harassed by his football teammates and he ends up breaking a friend's leg, so now all his friends are not speaking to him. Then he discovers the runaway girl, Mandy, is camping out in the pig owner's house. Together they try to solve the mystery of how the fungus is spreading and whether it is the basis for an unpublished story by a famous sci-fi writer, whose aged daughter lives just out of town. Mostly, things turn out okay in the end and they think they have gotten rid of the fungus for good. Eric apologizes for bullying Brian, making them better friends. They resign themselves to moving to Boston with their dad. The characters are believable and there's lots of action, but terror? No. The book is a good jumping off point for discussing plants and animals. Reviewer: Sarah Maury Swan

School Library Journal

Gr 4–7—Things are far from perfect in Eric Parrish's quiet Maine town. He's been wrongly accused of being the school bully. His little brother, Brian, is super annoying. His dad is having a midlife crisis and has moved to Boston. Mom works at a boarding school for troubled girls and is completely preoccupied with finding Mandy, one of her students who has run away. There are also some very strange, glowing mushrooms in the woods behind the Parrish house, and they're spreading quickly. Eric feels that there's something sinister about them. When he accidentally discovers Mandy's hiding place, he keeps her secret because she also thinks the mushrooms are dangerous. Their sleuthing leads to a painting in a local museum that seems to depict the town, 200 years earlier, overrun with mushrooms. Legend has it that the whole town actually disappeared. Eric and Mandy set out to make sure that never happens again, but how do you fight an evil fungus? Scaletta takes what could potentially be a silly, far-fetched premise and manages to create a distinctly unsettling feel, as the mushrooms quietly sneak through the floorboards of the Parrishs' home, across the football field, and invade the lives of the residents of Tanglewood. Eric's parents, especially his father, are fully fleshed-out characters, and Brian goes beyond the typical frustrating little brother to downright heartwarming at times. Recommend to kids looking for a little shiver without a major scare.—Mandy Lawrence, Fowler Middle School, Frisco, TX