I.R.L.

November 4, 2024
Upon first moving from San Francisco to small, rural White Pines, Alaska, due to her mother’s occupation studying renewable energy, sixth grader Lucy Bell-Rodriguez is excited to leave her former bullies behind. Yet she’s disheartened when she’s stuck at home doing remote learning from October to April, waiting out the treacherous Alaskan winter. Now that spring has sprung, though, it’s finally time for her first day of in-person schooling; Lucy is eager to get to know her classmates beyond her computer screen. But on her first IRL day at White Pines Secondary School, Lucy arrives to a burned-down building with no one in sight. Convinced she has the wrong address, Lucy tries to find her school again and instead stumbles upon a graveyard with headstones bearing the names of her classmates. Is Lucy the victim of some elaborate prank, or are there supernatural forces at play? Lucy’s palpable new-kid anxieties and earnest search for friendship following past bullying and virtual schooling adds emotional depth. Immersive descriptions of the remote Alaskan landscape inject eerie appeal to this sinister paranormal mystery by Goebel (Backcountry). Lucy is described as having “pasty skin.” Ages 8–12.

December 15, 2024
Switching from virtual to in-person learning causes supernatural scares for a sixth grader. Lucy Bell-Rodriguez's new school in rural Alaska has been meeting online during the colder months. Her classmates seem welcoming, if a bit old-fashioned, and escaping the bullies at her previous school is a relief. Lucy is nervous and excited when the improved weather finally provides a chance for the students to meet in person. She bravely takes off into the Alaskan chill toward White Pine Secondary School but soon finds herself at a charred ruin--did her classmate Mara give her an incorrect address as a prank? When she reconnects with the others online (due to inclement weather, the school's returning to virtual learning), Mara explains that she must have accidentally sent Lucy to the wrong location. But Lucy can't let it go, and when she returns to the site, she discovers something worse--gravestones with familiar names. Lucy's mother, a scientist at a research facility studying strange local electrical phenomena, tries to convince her that there's been some mistake, to no avail. Going light on character development, Goebel frees up space for many creepy scenarios and mysterious revelations. The fast pace and short length make this tale accessible to a wide range of readers, and the intriguing premise is well served by tight plotting. Characters' ethnicities aren't explicitly mentioned. A quick and chilling tale, full of school spirits.(Horror. 8-12)

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January 16, 2025
Grades 4-7 After being bullied at her old school in San Francisco, sixth-grader Lucy Bell-Rodriguez looks forward to a fresh start when she and her parents relocate to White Pine, Alaska, for her mom's new job. After a few weeks of virtual learning, Lucy expects her first in-person day to go smoothly. But when she gets to school, she finds a dilapidated building and 12 headstones engraved with her classmates' names. Things get stranger when technology around her starts to act up and she meets a boy in the forest who is hiding secrets. Lucy must get to the bottom of things like how those children died, what it has to do with the classmates she's never physically met, and how it all ties into her mom's research facility. Goebel has found her genre in paranormal stories. With a background in education, Goebel makes sure to focus on elements that resonate with middle-graders, such as bullying, online learning, and (hopefully to a lesser extent) ghosts. Readers will get an enjoyable fright from this story!

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