Killer chillers
Romance writer tries
By Betty Shimabukuro
the dark side and
kids love it!
Star-Bulletin"It had a single glittery black eye in the middle of its head. A HUUUGE bulging eye that swiveled around like a camera lens. When it stared at me, one of the feelers curled around my wrist and squeezed. Slime dripped from its body, like gray hanabata. Gray slippery snot.
Ewwwww."
WORDS only an adolescent could love. Written by a mild-mannered, red-headed lady from Mililani. OK, a slightly wacky lady from Mililani who will dress up like a witch and cackle if you only ask.
Her name is P.J. Neri. The P stands for Penelope; the J stands for nothing. She made it up to give herself a middle initial. Neri, now that part's real.
Neri is the author of a series of books called "Hawai'i Chillers," ghost stories for kids in the upper elementary grades -- a gap group when it comes to fiction. Teachers and librarians are hungry for new local material for this age group, those too old for storybooks and too young for classics or adult novels.
The "Chillers" are modeled on the "Goosebumps" series written by R.L. (Robert Lawrence) Stine, an author with a cultlike following among pre-teens nationwide. Stine has churned out dozens of books with titles like "The Cuckoo Clock of Doom," "Monster Blood III" and "Night of the Living Dummy."
Bess Press has published six "Chillers," the three most recent out in time for Halloween. They've sold more than 19,000 copies at $4.95 each since they first came out last year, the publisher reports. The latest three -- "The Night of the Living Tiki," "The Ghost Dog of Maka'ena Point" and "Killer Cockroaches" -- have sold 1,000 copies each just this month.
Like the "Goosebumps" stories, Neri's tales typically involve two main protagonists, aged 10 to 13, who face up to various horrors -- giant roaches, for example -- in about 100 pages, without adult assistance. In the end they're safe, but it's a temporary thing. The closing words always hint that the horror still lurks.
Neri says she read a few "Goosebumps" books to get an idea of the vocabulary level.
The name P.J. partly plays on the familiarity of the R.L. Stine moniker. The larger reason, though, is that Neri built her career on romance novels -- 23 so far, many of them national best-sellers, all written under the name Penelope Neri. "I didn't want them to pick up one of my romances by mistake."
Plus, she said, boys tend to gravitate more toward male authors, and P.J. sounds like it just could be a man's name.
Otherwise, Neri is distinctive from Stein. Her books touch on Hawaii legends -- the Night Marchers, for instance, and the dialogue runs toward pidgin and local slang. Neri is also a history and research buff -- that's how she first got into romance writing -- which gives her kids' books substance.
Did you know, for instance, that a cockroach's brain runs through its body, so even if you smash its head, the body will live on? At least until it dies of thirst? Did you know that they have motion detectors in their butts?
Neri has been writing romances for 17 years. Her latest, "Scandals," a Victorian novel, comes out in January with her new publisher, Leisure Books.
Two veteran ghost hunters also have new books out this Halloween. More books in
the cauldron with
local flavorGlen Grant, author of five previous books, as well as host of an occasional TV special and a regular radio show on scary stories, has published "Chicken Skin Tales."
Grant will share some of those tales at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Waikiki Heritage Theater in the International Marketplace. Cost is $5. Call 943-0371.
Rick Carroll, meanwhile, offers his third collection, "Hawai'i's Best Spooky Tales 2." He'll appear at Borders on Maui at 7 p.m. and Borders in Kona at 4 p.m. tomorrow.
Both books present ghost tales told to the authors by others. Here is a sampling:
"The husband went to his bedroom window and looked out ... A small, old Japanese woman in a red kimono and holding a red umbrella was moving slowly down the driveway. ... 'Honey,' the husband called (to his wife), 'come here! You gotta see this lady! She is so cute!' ...
"The old woman turned her head slightly ... the couple could look directly into her face ... both their knees buckled. ... The woman they were looking at had no eyes, no nose and no mouth. Instead of the features of a human face, she appeared to have the features of a smooth, white egg."
-- From "Chicken Skin Tales," Mutual Publishing, $12.95.
"I looked up and saw the massive body of a man wearing an aloha shirt, standing about 3 feet away from me. I did not see any head, and I was afraid to look to see if he had any feet. ... Several days later I bought some Hawaiian food for dinner and set a plate next to my computer. I went into the living room briefly, and when I went back ... the plate was gone.
"I happened to tell a friend of mine about seeing the big Hawaiian man at my house. She casually said it was her deceased husband going holoholo and he had followed me home. She then told me: 'Don't feed him. Just tell him to go home.' "
-- Told by Richard S. Fukushima in "Hawai'i's Best Spooky Tales 2," Bess Press, $11.95.
A romance, she says, takes about six months to write, compared to two weeks for a "Chiller."
She went to Bess Press last year with her idea for the children's series. "I was ready to write something different and I really saw the need to have some books for the 8-and-up group written for today."
Too many children stop reading at this age, Neri says. They get bogged down by schoolwork and other activities, or they just can't find anything that interests them. Her three children, now grown, went through this, despite having an author for a mother. "If I can make these books fun, so kids want to go out and flex their reading muscles, that's great."
Diane Teramoto, a children's librarian at the Hawaii State Library, says there isn't a lot of local fiction written for grades 4 to 6, an age where it's "more of a challenge" to get kids to read.
"Kids like scary stories," she says. "They see these are about Hawaii and they want to read them."
At Waialua Library, where Neri will join six other writers in an Authors' Night Nov. 11, the "Chillers" are constantly on loan. They're popular with kids, library assistant Alicia Amper says. "It seems they really liked R.L. Stine and the 'Goosebumps,' and now that's wearing thin with them, so they're going to the 'Chillers.' "
Neri arrived in Hawaii in 1970 by way of Ipswich, England. She met her husband, Harvey, when he was stationed in the Air Force in England and returned with him to his home on the North Shore. Her father-in-law raised taro and hasu, and she learned the farming life.
Some of her "Chillers" are set in that familiar territory, and reflect stories she picked up from her husband's parents.
Does she believe? "You have to remember, I'm from England. We have as many ghosts per capita as they do here."
Spirits, she hypothesizes, are like the ripples left in the water when you toss in a pebble. "When a person has lived, they leave an energy behind. ... Maybe the ghost is like the ripples, the echoes."
She says she isn't haunted by her own stories -- but, "I don't work on them at night."
Next for Neri: Another three "Chillers" next year, and a new series for 10- to- 14-year-olds called "Diamond Head High," which launches in February.
The light romances will involve kids at a high school for the performing arts who form a singing group called Kaleidoscope, modeled on Na Leo Pilimehana. Neri has wrote the first book, "A Perfect Harmony"; others will contribute future installments.
Will it be P.J. or Penelope? Probably P.J., she says. People have started calling her that, and she likes it. As for Penelope -- "I've always hated that name."
Author signing
What: P.J. Neri will autograph her books
Barnes and Noble: 7 p.m. today
