Parents' Guide to
Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories
Common Sense Media Review
By Carrie R. Wheadon
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Mild scares and laughs for Wimpy Kid fans.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 4 parent reviews
What's the Story?
In ROWLEY JEFFERSON'S AWESOME FRIENDLY SPOOKY STORIES, Wimpy Kid Greg's friend Rowley tries his hand at telling short horror stories. Fourteen tales feature a young werewolf, a prankster who gets pranked, a boy whose friend comes back as a chatty ghost, a girl whose parents think she's a vampire, a boy who's just a head who befriends the headless horseman and together they ask a girl to a school dance, an airport scanner that turns everyone into skeletons, a boy who thinks he lives in the middle ages, a grandma who napped so soundly that her family buried her, a fibbing boy haunted by an ice cream stain, an unpopular mummy taken to court by a popular mummy for copyright infringement, a boy named Frankenstein with a very curious science fair experiment, a boy tempted by his parents' forbidden medicine cabinet, and a town trying to find a way to live amicably with invading zombies. It ends with Rowley telling a story he's sure is the honest truth, about that time his friend Greg got possessed by a demon, messed up his house, and ate all his food.
Is It Any Good?
Scary stories are all in the telling, and when Wimpy Kid Greg's sweet and innocent friend Rowley tells them, expect them to be mild enough for young readers and mildly funny. There are none of the outrageous Wimpy Kid-level antics here, except when a grandma is buried alive (it ends fine!) and the last story of 14, when Greg convinces Rowley that he, Greg, has been possessed by a demon. Because it's Rowley's perspective, Rowley is 100 percent convinced it happened, which makes it uncomfortably funny if you're the sort to wish Rowley had much nicer friends. Poor kid. Hints of friendship woes return in the story "Ghost Friend," where a boy's BFF comes back as a ghost and makes life miserable for him.
By far the oddest story is the one where one mummy sues another for copyright infringement. How would Rowley, our naive narrator, know what this is? The story with the funniest twists and turns is "The Invasion," in which a town handles a zombie invasion in a refreshing way. Overall, kids will have fun with the variety of tales and standard horror characters in Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories, and tehy may even be inspired to imagine some of their own to tell around the campfire.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about perspective in the last story in Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, titled "The Demon." How does Rowley tell the story? How would Wimpy Kid Greg tell it?
Is Greg a good friend to Rowley? What about the ghost in the story "Ghost Friend"? What happens to the boy later in life who always follows along with his friend?
Which of these horror characters -- werewolves, vampires, mummies, zombies, ghosts, etc. -- have you read about or seen before? Where? Which are totally new?
Are you interested in reading more scary stories? How scary do you like your stories? When are they too scary for you?
Book Details
- Author: Jeff Kinney
- Illustrator: Jeff Kinney
- Genre: Graphic Novel
- Topics: Magic and Fantasy , Adventures , Middle School , Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires , Space and Aliens
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
- Publication date: March 16, 2021
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 8 - 13
- Number of pages: 224
- Available on: Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: March 31, 2021
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
What to Read Next
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate