Member Reviews
Karen S, Librarian
Into the Darkness (Stuffed#2)
When I requested this book from Netgalley, I didn’t realize it was the second book … so I went and borrowed the first one and listened to it first. I’m glad I did, as I absolutely loved both of them.
As children, my cousin and I were both very aware of the monsters under the bed, but whereas I had a lamp by my bed, he had only the switch to the overhead light on the other side of the room beside the door. He solved the problem by designing an elaborate series of cords that allowed him to get safely into bed, and then turn out the light! C.L. would be impressed, no doubt!
In this feel-good, offbeat fantasy, friends Clark, D.A., and Catherine Lucille are happy to be getting back to Camp I Can and looking forward to spending two week-long sessions together, as well as the inter-session campout in between. But when they arrive at camp, something seems … off. Most of the staff and senior counsellors are either sick and have been replaced, or seems out of it and almost zombie-like. Turns out the monsters are planning revenge against Foon for killing the King Derker that was living in Clark’s house last year. They’ve figured out which boy belongs with Foon, and have arranged to have all the stuffies confiscated from the kids headed to the inter-session camp, so that while they have the kids trapped on the monster controlled mountain in a spooky cabin they can capture and eat Clark.
Foon realizes he’s been left behind and needs to get to his boy as quickly as possible, so armed with his trusty silver trident (a seafood fork pilfered from the silverware drawer) named Focus, Foon heads into the world of darkness, where he’ll meet up with a Phlebbish, a type of monster who doesn’t eat children or harm humans at all, but steals orphan socks to build its tent homes out of and is also very fond of used bubble gum. The Phlebbish agrees to help Food find his way through the darkness to the door to the mountain in return for the infamous, mighty Foon not killing him. The “door” turns out to be through a Grindel – a monster that reaches up between the worlds and into a dead tree outside the cabin in the woods. Without even knowing it, boy and stuffie will work together to defeat the monster and save the camp – and the world!
