By Troy Cummings
A boy new in town finds a secret notebook full of monsters, and then the monsters start showing up.
Alexander has just moved to a new town when he finds a beat-up old notebook packed with drawings and notes about monsters. He figures it's a joke, until the Balloon Goons, floppy, grinning, inflatable monsters, come after him. With two new friends, Alexander has to use what the notebook tells him to fight them off, and figure out who left the notebook behind.
This is the busiest, most action-packed pick for a child who wants a little thrill but isn't ready for anything scary. It's a Scholastic Branches book, built for a newly independent reader, so the print is big, the chapters are short, and there's a lively picture on nearly every page. And it's the first of a long series, so a child who loves the chase has a whole run of monster cases ahead.