SuitabookThe Screaming Staircase
Jonathan Stroud
- Reading
- Read alongside the reader if scares are a concern, pausing after major cases to discuss the ghost rules and the agency’s choices. Keep the social consequences in view, not only the suspense.
- Themes
- Children confronting public danger: Young operatives run a psychic detection agency while London experiences a lethal ghost outbreak that only children can see. The book leaves its stance open to more than one reading.
- Living with a supernatural epidemic: An outbreak of ghosts affects London, while the agency investigates the objects to which spirits are attached. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Worth knowing
- The central threat involves ghosts who kill people on contact, and the book is presented as highly creepy. Consider whether the reader is comfortable with sustained supernatural danger and frightening imagery.