Book Week may be postponed this year, but never fear, the good old book club order form is still here. But this time with a difference.
Fashioned after school book club order forms that have been around for decades (did anyone else love Scholastic catalogues?!) My Little Occult Book Club offers a selection of retro covers that combine innocent-looking children and domestic scenes with aliens, vampires and witches. It is written and illustrated by Steven Rhodes, whose parody book cover T-shirts have cult-like appeal the world over.
Highlights include:
- How To Exit Your Body – For Beginners: an introduction to Astral Projection by Dr Phil McCoffen
- The B.M.Hex Gang: “After accidentally reading an incantation from an old book of witchcraft, Donna, April and Caroline have invoked the worst of all demons—Satan himself! The only way to banish the Dark Lord is to beat him in the BMX Championship race known as “The DeathCourse”. Will the gang have time to win the course, save the town and ruin the junior prom?”
- And my personal favourite: Alien Abduction Club (I have a soft spot for the Baby-Sitters Club!):
I reviewed a teen book on bodies earlier in the month. Here’s a fun exercise! Compare and contrast it to the tome featured in the book club:
There are lots more fun activities in this book, including mazes, word searches and invitations to mail away for occult incantation videocassettes. Ah, takes me back to my childhood…
With its tongue firmly in cheek, this book would be a perfect gift for a horror-loving pulp fiction fan with a retro aesthetic.
Warnings: Satan, exorcisms, zombies, werewolves, autopsies
Chronicle 2020, 80 pp, ISBN 1797203258
This book was provided as an e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.