Book Review ~ GHOSTS, TOAST, AND OTHER HAZARDS by Susan Tan

Ghosts, Toast, and Other Hazards
by: Susan Tan
Genre: Asian American Middle-Grade Mystery
Release Date: April 25, 2023
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

From APALA Honor award-winning author Susan Tan, a middle-grade novel about a girl who must overcome her worries to find the truth behind her town's urban legend.

Mo is not afraid of toast. Just to be clear. She is afraid of fires, though. Which can be caused by everyday appliances, like toasters. So toast isn’t the problem, but you could say it’s the start of a slippery slope. Since her family's recent move, Mo's been eating oatmeal for breakfast.

Moving to a new town is never easy, but it’s even harder when you’re dealing with a stepdad who just left and a mom who can’t get out of bed long enough to find a new a job.

But Mo doesn’t have time to dwell on these things. Because it’s her job to keep her family together. To keep them safe.

So when an elephant starts to haunt her dreams―and a mysterious spirit attacks her home―Mo knows it’s up to her to intervene before things get too dangerous.

With her new friend, Nathaniel, she embarks on an investigation, searching for the truth about the town, its people, and their history. But things are much more complicated and tangled than she thought.

To find out what’s really going on, Mo might have to live a little dangerously after all.

When her step-father leaves and her family loses their home to a fire, twelve-year-old Monica, preferably called Mo, has a few fears, but the chance to hunt an elephant ghost, and the promise of a new friend just might show Mo that she can live with a little danger.

Ghosts, Toast, and Other Hazards was an enjoyable read, with funny remarks between Mo and Nathaniel, a boy she meets at her new school. I liked the storyline and the interesting plot twist. I wasn’t a fan of some of the characters or the backstory of the ghost.

**Received a copy of the book courtesy of the publisher and voluntarily reviewed it.**

Rating: 4

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I’ve wanted to be a children’s author since eighth grade when I was named “most likely to be a children’s book writer” in the middle school yearbook. In high school, I worked in the Children’s Room of my local public library, and in college I sketched picturebook outlines in the margins of my school notes.

But I didn’t really start writing books of my own until after college, when I was earning my PhD at the University of Cambridge in Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature (sense a pattern?). I began writing funny stories from my childhood while I rode the bus in the mornings, and in bed before I fell asleep at night. These stories gradually came together into my first book, Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinaire.

Cilla is based on my own family and deals with the questions, challenges, and many joys that navigating different racial and cultural identities can bring. A second book in the Cilla series, Cilla Lee-Jenkins: This Book is A Classic will be released this March, with a third Cilla book coming in 2019.

More about me: I was the 2015 Gish Jen Emerging Writers Fellow at the Writers’ Room of Boston, and when I’m not writing, crocheting, or reading, you can find me teaching at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Places to find Susan Tan:

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram | Amazon Author Page

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