The Squirrel Scouts are all prepared for their Halloween Haunted Hike across Elliot's Park--but it turns out to be scarier than they'd expected! The squirrels must conquer their fears of the rope swing, the field house, and scariest of all, ghosts! Who is it who's haunting the park? Can the young squirrels find out in time to make it to the Halloween party at Camp Canyon?

Eh. There's a lot here that doesn't quite work. There's an implication that we're all super-familiar with the characters, and frankly there are just too many of them crammed into 60 pages. There is a full cast of characters (with descriptions) in the back of the book, but instead of clarifying who's who it underscores the idea that the cast members are too indistinct to warrant individual attention. Each one has one trait, which is mentioned in the book with very little context. (Example: one character appears out of nowhere and burps: "It was a strawberry-flavored burp, just like the soda pop." Grossness aside, the cast list describes her as liking soda (pop), but this is the only mention of her in the book.)

3 stars because I don't really read a lot for this age group (maybe 2nd-3rd grade?) so I'm not super-familiar with what the norms are, but really this is kind of a muddle. ( )