The Pinkaboos: Belladonna and the Nightmare Academy

By Jake Gosselin and Laura Gosselin

This time, Belladonna must scare away ghosts haunting a little girl's dreams, while a new fright named Wither struggles at Fright School.  Things get complicated when Vex, the school bully, gets involved.  Belladonna and her fellow Pinkaboos have to be braver than ever when they uncover Vex's super secret plot. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781449484194

Book preview

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Other Books by Jake Gosselin and Laura Gosselin

The Pinkaboos: Bitterly and the Giant Problem

Prologue

Belladonna waved ’bye to her friends and walked up the path to her little home. It wasn’t much, just a tiny castle with a mini drawbridge and a moat filled with singing jellyfish. Her jellies weren’t singing today, just humming happily to themselves.

Belladonna was used to hurrying home to start reading a new book, but she hadn’t been this excited since she got her hands on her first spellbook. Tonight, she’d be reading the book her teacher, Miss Viper, had lent her, When Frights Become Nightmares.

Rushing inside, Belladonna performed her usual ritual for getting ready to read. She closed the door

and locked it, pushed her comfy chair next to the fireplace, and grabbed an assortment of snacks, piling them on the table next to her chair. Then she flicked the switch that turned on her sign out front, which read Do Not Disturb: Terror Technician at Work. She settled into her chair, pulled the book out of her backpack, and laid it on her lap.

The book felt heavy for its size, as if its words carried a weight all their own. Belladonna opened it as though it might be filled with angry spiders. The pages were old, dry, and yellow. Some were torn, and several had handwritten notes in the margins (completely spider-free, thankfully).

She flipped through it, scanning the drawings and some of what was written. It was broken into three chapters: chapter 1, Why Frights Become Nightmares; chapter 2, How Frights Become Nightmares; and chapter 3, How to Stop a Nightmare. Belladonna liked to do things in the proper order, so even though she really wanted to jump straight to chapter 3, she turned to chapter 1, page 1, and began to read.

Inside every fright is the desire to help a little girl. Frights receive so much happiness from helping young human children that they will sacrifice anything to take care of them. But sometimes a fright finds she isn’t very good at helping children overcome their fears. This is very dangerous for a fright. If she gives up on trying to help her little girl, the fright may eventually turn into a nightmare and live on the fears of girls instead of on their courage, as most frights do.

Wow. Nightmares live on the fears of children? Frights live on courage? Only one paragraph in, and Belladonna already felt like her glasses were going to fall right off her face.

Belladonna grabbed a few extra reading candles from her drawer and set them up on the table beside her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she had read the whole book. She flipped through the pages, noting

Reviews for The Pinkaboos

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

SEP 06 - Book Two is even better than the first. A great story in itself but also establishing a wider ongoing story. All the frights have now been assigned little girls, except poor Wither who has been told she's not ready yet. This is the type of fright that Vex is looking for. The schhol bully in the first book, she's now dropped out of school and opening her own to train frights to be nightmares. Most of the action centres around the Pinkaboos helping Belladonna with her little girl who dreams of ghosts but has Vex crashing her dreams to make them even worse. The book ends on a cliffhanger. I love the creepy art done in various shades of pink!

[carlathelibrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book in the Pinkaboos series. I feel this series is geared to late primary, early junior readers. It is a beginning chapter book with interesting illustrations (lots of pink) that add emotion to the story.

In this book the three Pinkaboo friends are back and all the frights are getting their little girls to help. All except Wither that is. When the little girls have nightmares or scary dreams, the frights appear to help them fight their fear and have the strength to stand up the the fear. When Wither does not get her girl, she becomes upset which is just what the bully Hex is waiting for. While she is feeling bad and has little or no self-confidence, Hex tries to convince her to become a nightmare like she is. Can her friends get to her in time to save her from making a mistake and one of the worst decisions of her life? Can they help their own little girls? Watch for the cute bat that makes an appearance in the story.

This book has positive messages about standing up to bullies, facing your fears and working together. It is a good book for teaching those messages, but also a fun series for little girls to read. It would be a good series to have in primary classroom libraries and school libraries. I like the activities and facts that are in the back of the book such as making your own fright then writing your own story about it, learning about bats and making a bat-house and making ghost puppets.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.