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One rainy day, Olivia and her friends decide to play hotel at her house. They pretend that the hotel is being haunted by a ghost, so Olivia and her friends try to find where the ghost is hiding. Olivia's younger brother Ian was pretending to be the ghost because he wanted to play so Olivia decides to make him a room-service waiter.
1 book

Olivia and the Haunted Hotel is one of my most favorite fictional children’s book as Halloween approaches. Like the rest of the Olivia book series, the big idea of this book is to encourage children to explore, be creative, and use their mind as spontaneously as possible. With that being said, in my opinion, the language, writing style, and the characters, all allow this book to be a great read.

The language is clear, descriptive, and fun. As Olivia, the main character, invites her friends over for a play date, she greets everyone by, “Welcome to the Hotel Olivia.” Right off the bat we are able to recognize Olivia’s creative mind. As she take everyone to their room, one last guest wants a room – and the bathroom is all that is left. Olivia says, “This is our last room…You’ll love the privacy. Plus the soaps are free. But you’ll have to leave when the other guests need to use the bathroom.” I at least thought this quote was funny. Furthermore, there was a thunder storm going on while the “guests” were at “the Hotel Olivia,” and “[s]uddenly there was a loud bang and everything went dark. ‘HEY! WHO TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS?’ yelled Francine, alarmed.” This quote is a great example of how the language of this book is clear and descriptive.

Next, the writing style is definitely catchy, engaging, organized, and flows well throughout the whole book. There is a clear story line during the course of the book; thus, the book was well organized. The readers can expect what will happen next; which in turn, keeps the book engaging. And over all the book flows well.

Finally, the characters are believable, and well-developed which enables the book to be engaging as well. For example, Olivia’s character is at the age when most children have an active imagination. So, even though Olivia’s character is a pig, readers can relate to how she explores her thoughts and ideas because they are real make believe scenarios that anyone would play. Also, her little brother, Ian is somewhat of an annoyance to Olivia. He wants to play with her and her friends, but she does not want him around. So, like most little brothers would do to scare their sisters during Halloween time, he dresses up as a ghost and scares everyone. And again, the ages depicted by Olivia and her friends, they would most definitely be frightened, first by the storm, and then the appearance of a ghost. One of her friends even said, “This hotel is haunted.” To sum this up, Ian’s character is believable and well developed because he is a typical little brother that annoys his big sister and most readers can relate to this situation. And if not, they have seen scenarios like this.

Great Halloween book! ( )