The Afterlife Academy

Gr 4–6—Twelve-year-old Walter Praire is a Guardian Agent. Agent not angel. And right now he is supposed to be protecting a kid named Charlie who has dug up a powerful book, The Summoner's Handbook, which evidently every evil demon, wraith, and shade is after. Of course, Walter was supposed to have four years of training at the Afterlife Academy before being thrown into guarding a HLT (High Level Target), but it was only yesterday that he had found his way to the Categorizing office after dying from a lightning strike. So Walter does the only thing he can think of and throws himself between Charlie and the demon that is about the suck him into the underworld. And that is how Walter finds himself inside Charlie. Charlie is obsessed with the paranormal and, needless to say, not very socially popular and now he has to deal with being possessed by a Guardian Agent. He knows he is in grave danger, especially now that he can see all the afterworld creatures around him and so he turns to the world expert on paranormal activity: Wisdom Willows. It proves to be a near-fatal mistake. As evil closes in on them, Walter, Charlie, and his family find themselves following Wisdom's advice right into a trap to try to open a gate between the demon and human world. The characters are likable and relatable. The tone throughout is the perfect level of sarcastic humor mixed with a realistic view of kids' social interactions. The plot and afterlife invention is certainly a clever way to imagine what happens after you die.