Johnny Maxwell is a fairly ordinary 12 year-old boy - except for the fact that he can communicate with spirits in his towns cemetery! Read a review of the Terry Pratchett childrens novel, Johnny and the Dead right here.
Title: Johnny and the Dead
Author: Terry Pratchett
Ages: 9+
Rating:
A 12-year old boy mysteriously finds a way to communicate with the dead in the Terry Pratchett novel, Johnny and the Dead. Find out more about this spooky adventure right here.
Talking To Ghosts
Johnny and the Dead follows Only You Can Save Mankind, as the second book in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy. In this second book, Johnny Maxwell is a fairly ordinary 12 year-old boy, except for the fact that he's somehow found a way to communicate with the dead people at his town's cemetery. Johnny's new group of dead friends include a grumpy former soldier, a distant relative of Albert Einstein and an energetic women's rights activist. Unfortunately for Johnny's new group of dead friends, a greedy and heartless corporation (is there any other kind?), has bought the cemetery from the city and plans to bulldoze it over and turn it into office buildings. As the bulldozers start rumbling, the dead look to Johnny to save their eternal resting spot.
Saving The Dead
Johnny soon finds out that stopping a large corporation from doing what it wants is more difficult than asking a math teacher to permanently suspend homework assignments. But with the help of his new crew of dead dudes, Johnny does his best to start an underground movement to stop the developers. Can the surprisingly clever and resourceful Johnny stop the Dead's resting place from being turned into an office tower? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out.
The Bottom Line
Johnny and the Dead is a fun and fast-paced read with a bizarre and twisted plot. The dead characters in the novel are hilarious and give the book plenty of dark humor. You may want to read the first book in this series, Only You Can Save Mankind, first to become a bit more familiar with Johnny Maxwell and his pals - but Johnny and the Dead also stands up as a good book by itself. Johnny and the Dead is an amusing read that also has a good message about the importance of balancing progress and preserving the past.
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