It has been awhile since I read a middle grade book and I absolutely love the cover, so I decided to give it a go and was pleasantly surprised by The Grave Digger. I listened to the audiobook and think it is a creepy story perfect for the Halloween season.

The story is about a 12 year old boy named Cap who becomes a grave digger along with his dad to help pay for his mother's medical bills. One night one of the bodies comes back to life at his touch and that sets off a story that is much more than grave digging full of twists, turns, interesting characters, mystery, danger and genuine creepiness.

I think parents should be careful with this book because it is marketed to ages 8-12 (more appropriate for ages 12-15 in my opinion). The story covers themes of gender roles, poverty and racism (I cringed every time I heard African Americans referred to as "colored" but I understand the language was true to the time - late 1800s, children might not understand this and have questions). which might be a bit much for younger children. These themes are tough to address in a middle grade book, and I think Rebecca Bischoff did a great job but parents should be aware of the content to make an educated decision on what their children read and to be prepared to answer questions they may have after reading this book.

I enjoyed this unique story and Cap is such a likable and funny character. It was a quick read (or listen) and fans of fantasy and paranormal will enjoy this story. I give The Grave Digger 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because of the great narration.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed listening to this book. It kept my attention, and I love the fact that it takes place in my home state of Ohio! I think the main characters were well developed, I felt like I was part of the story as it was unravelling. I loved the many twists and turns, and that you really had no idea how the book was going to end until it actually did. Readers will not be disappointed!

What an original story! Spooky historical fiction at its best. Readers of all ages will love The Grave Digger.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book, but I found that it was too heavy for intermediate grade children. The book talks a lot in the beginning pages about being orphaned, about slavery, and about what people have to do to survive. All of these are great lessons, but there was more gore in the details of the grave robbing and the ability to resurrect the dead than I think many kids might be able to handle.

I wanted to love it, the premise sounded great but, it just kind of fell flat for me. I felt the plot sometimes strayed and had to be put back on track a few times, there wasn't much in terms of character development - characters had their tropes and that was that.

There didn't seem to be a takeaway in the end either. With most middle grade there is usually some 'lesson' you leave with but, I couldn't figure out what that was meant to be. The ending was very neatly wrapped - a little too neat. Without giving spoilers there were characters that didn't face any consequences for their horrible actions.

The narrator was okay, they did well with it. They just weren't for me, personally.

This is not my normal read but I was pleasantly surprised. Poor Cap just wants to do the right thing but also wants his mother to receive the best care. Fast paced after a slow start with great narration.

I loved this book. It was a very interesting one.
Plus the narration was good. This book had everything from action to some mystery and little creepiness.
Highly recommended
Thank you to to the Netgalley for this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a very easy, quick read. It’s had great character development and a very interesting, suspenseful plot. The idea of grave digging and taking bodies to earn a living and support your family is incomprehensible, but the author makes you understand and feel the reasoning through well-written words. I really enjoyed it! #thegravedigger #netgalley

This started off as a kind-of spooky, historical novel for children but soon felt out of touch with what kids books need to be nowadays. The use of the terms ‘coloured’ and ‘one of them’ is wrong and irresponsible - it may be that that wording was used when the book is set, but that is not what children should be reading now. As we know, children repeat what they hear and so outdated, insulting words should not be used in today’s children’s literature.

Rebecca Bischoff spins a tale of family and loss in The Grave digger. Young Cap Cooper is an inventor by day and a grave robber by night. His mother has many medical bills and bodies for dissection being a good price. Along with his father and other shady characters, Cap spends his night digging up those who won’t be missed - or at least the government won’t care. But his whole life changes when one of the corpses comes back to life at his touch.
I’ve always been fascinated by this period of grave robbing and the underground sale of bodies to medical schools. Bischoff did a good job with this subject. It was normally those with lower social standing and few or no relatives that made their way to the dissection tables of universities. Bischoff touches on this quite often throughout the book.
I also found the narration by Mark Sanderlin enjoyable. Sometimes narrators for children’s fiction can be a bit grating, but Sanderlin delivered an entertaining performance.
If you enjoy not-too-scary middle grade books, such as Small Spaces, you may enjoy The Grave Digger.

I received a copy of this audiobook for free via NetGalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.

#ContainsMinorSpoilers
This book left me with many mixed feelings. There are many things that work, and many that are simply too weird for a children's book. I am left scratching my head at whether I am being too harsh, but that’s how this book is: it has left me as muddled as its plot is. I’m really sorry, but this storyline just didn’t click with me.

Plot Summary:
12 year old Cap Cooper, an aspiring inventor, is forced to accompany his father on his work. The problem is that the work involved grave digging and selling off the bodies to crooked doctors in the name of “medical research”. After he discovers that one of the “dead” came to life at his touch, he uncovers a plethora of deep dark secrets that might end up destroying his family, his friendships, and the town at large.

What clicks:
• The eerie factor for those who enjoy the paranormal: The story is quite weird yet mysterious. Those who enjoy this type of writing might enjoy the spookiness of Cap’s nocturnal adventures.
• The twists about who’s good and who’s not: Most characters in the book come in shades of gray and that is really nicely done. You will not understand who can be trusted.
• The balance between strong male and female characters: This book has plenty of gutsy girls in spite of the lead character being a boy. I like middle grade fiction that depicts boys and girls equally and properly.
• Revealing sad truths about the past: The story is set in 1875. The idea of black people aspiring to medical school in that time period would have been something I would have considered impossible. But this story caused me to research more into the topic and turns out, it was indeed possible, though difficult. Grave robbing was also an actual practice in the early medical research days. The book depicts the repercussions of this practice on the surviving family members nicely. This was a nice way to look at the malpractices of the past and provoke thought on why humans behaved that way.

What doesn't:
• The story is a bit too creepy in places. There are too many things that I won’t like to see in children’s fiction, even discounting the digging up of bodies. Prostitution, alcoholism, murder, dead babies, gross details of tumours, dissection details,… These might have been okay in a YA book, but not in children’s fiction, even if it’s for middle graders.
• The writing goes from fab to flat. It starts off wonderfully and you are kept on your toes about what will happen next. But with too many characters and not enough of character development, the plot just grows tedious. The ending doesn’t save the story.
• There are many random facts in the plot that aren’t built up on. For instance, Cap is said to be a great inventor (even the blurb says so.) But his inventive skills don’t come in handy to him at any point during the story. It made me wonder why he was even introduced as an inventor in the first place. The back story about Cap’s mysterious tryst with death during his birth is left hanging. I felt the author was trying to cram too much into the book and she forgot to tie up the ends together. A simpler approach to the plot would have worked wonderfully in this story, especially as it is aimed at an audience whose attention span is quite sporadic.

The audiobook is narrated by Mark Sanderlin and he does his best to make the book enjoyable. I enjoyed his narration. If only the story held me captivated!

Thank you, NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio, for the Advanced Audio Review Copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Orange Sky Audio for the audiobook ARC. I am voluntarily reviewing this audio book. This is a children's book. I found this to be a very odd story. I know this happened but I found it creepy. To rob graves to make money to help his sick pregnant mom. I guess she was bedridden. There were some things that didn't make sense. They never seemed to be hurting for food. They had a housekeeper. He still went to school. There is not much background given but the housekeeper who is Irish (?) is prejudice? Then the entire coming back to life part-which was never explained and was sort of forgotten. No one asked any questions when 2 people come back to life? What?? This book confused me and was sort of sad and creepy. Not for me, and to be honest I wouldn't want my child to hear this alone. 3 stars

3.5 stars
I really liked the concept of this book, but it just didn't grab my attention.
Cap was a cute character. He has been volunteered by his father to help them dig up graves in order to pay for his mother's medical expenses and he does not enjoy it. He had a great journey of kind of finding himself throughout the book. He has great intuition and stuck to his guns. Some other characters I enjoyed were Delphia and Jessamyn. There were a lot of other characters and I had a bit of a hard time remembering who was who at times. There were also a lot of bad people but I don't want to spoil who they were or what they did!
There were a lot of creepy parts in this book, but nothing so scary that it's inappropriate as a middle grade book.
The beginning/middle was a little slow, but the ending was super fast paced and I was really interested in what happened by the end of it.
Definitely a good middle grade for the kids who like the spooky stuff!

Thanks to Rebecca Bischoff, OrangeSky Audio and Netgalley for the ALC of the audiobook of The Grave Digger.
In a village in Ohio in 1875, corpses went missing from the graves. To pay for his mother's treatment, twelve year old Captain Cooper got involved with grave robbers along with his father. In one of his works, a bizarre incident takes place.
Not your usual children's book. It was creepy, dark, mysterious and a bit supernatural. There were things related to graveyards and dead bodies. Things that children's don't often think about. Other than that the story also showed racism and sexism in 1800s. There were lots of characters. Mixture of bad guys and good guys. I liked Cap and Delphia. Cap was innovative and thoughtful. Delphia was an ambitious girl. The story's concept had potential but it didn't flourish as expected.
Mark Sanderlin had performed well as the narrator of the audiobook.
Overall it was a passable story.

Cap is 12 years old, is intelligent, he wants to be an inventor and help his family, he lives in a small town in Ohio 1875, his father steals bodies from the cemetery, sells them to the university to cover home expenses.
One night Cap will accompany his father to the cemetery, and something very strange will happen. The dead are no remaining dead! When they were digging, Cap touches the body of a classmate and she wakes up.

It is a mystery novel with supernatural vibes. Not only does Cap discover that he could have powers, but that a mysterious disease has arrived in the town, it is Cap's task together with his friend to investigate what is happening, the more they investigate, the more mystery and problems they find.

I like the characters, both kids are likeable and fun, bonus points to Delphia who wants to be a doctor.

It also touches on various issues related to the time, like racism, difference between social classes and women's rights, it is a great way to get into the historical novel.
This story was good, fast paced, and with the precise level of spooky for children, I listened to the audiobook, it was a great experience, lasts about five hours

Audiobook provided by NetGalley and OrangeSky Audio in exchange for an honest review.

Most of the time when I think about the late 1800s when graves were robbed so that the freshly dead bodies could be used for science, I think about London. So it was interesting to have this theme moved to Ohio in 1875 and focused around a twelve-year-old boy who gets roped into joining his father in graveyards at night to help earn the family some money.

Cap Cooper is an aspiring inventor and would much rather be in his workshop than out late at night robbing graves. But when a body comes back to life at his touch things go sideways for Cap... and for his town. While there is a slight magical element to this (Cap being able to bring bodies back to life), it does cover the real life occurrences of people being mistakenly taken for dead and buried alive.

While this deals with dead bodies, grave robbing, and such, it's not took dark of a book and is an appropriate Middle Grade book that I think kids who like their books to be slightly creepy will enjoy. I appreciated that Bischoff also worked into this story the discourse of women (especially minorities) becoming doctors and studying medicine.

Mark Sanderlin does a good job with the audiobook as well.

Narration: 4 stars
Story: 4 stars

To help his father pay the medical bills for his mother, 12 year old Capp joins his father digging up graves. When one night one of the corpses return to life at his touch, Capp finds himself entwined in something much bigger than just digging up graves. Does he posses extraordinary powers or is there something else going on?
Just read this book (or listen to the audiobook) to unravel this mystery.

This book was everything what I like about books for children. The writing was simple, but intriguing and the story compelling. It contained a nice balance between fantasy, mystery, danger, discovery, friendship, right or wrong and some facts of history in the background.
This is the kind of story my 12 year old self would have devoured

Opening scene grabbed the attention of the listening audience and held their attention! A young boy grave robber as the main character wasn’t something we’ve come across before and it left lots of room for open discussions about Cap’s moral conflicts within our group. Perfect audio book for children 8 years and up.

The book is set in 1875 Ohio and follows young boy, Cap, as he and his Dad are forced to become grave robbers to make the extra money to support Cap's Mom as she is not well and pregnant. They remove the dead bodies to sell to the university for medical testing. One night, Cap touches the dead and the corpse comes back to life. I don't want to spoil the story but I definitely recommend this creepy tale of intrigue and murder. Thanks so much to #netgalley for the early review copy.