In the summer between 5th and 6th grades, Leo and Chad are about to attend Camp Smellerd where 12 Guppy Scouts disappeared in 1981, never to be heard from again. Meanwhile, Leo has a half-zombie friend, Roger, who lives in a lab behind a sliding panel in the back of his bedroom closet. Chad’s older sister, Anita, is excited to be a counselor at Camp Smellerd this summer and plans to clean up the algal bloom on Lake Moan. She thinks it is caused by the “radioactive blast at Brainland’s nuclear power plant ” back in 1981. Anita’s plan is to take ” the group of ragtag kids in mismatched socks and stained T-shirts…[now] In their sparkling white suits, they looked like algae-fighting superheroes.”  In the exact middle of the book, while Anita is running the pond/water skimmer a “noise grew louder and louder until— ‘AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH’ from the lake’s shore came a long, low moan.”  Fish zombies dressed in old guppy scout uniforms surround Anita, Chad, and Leo in the boat. Dun, dun, dah! The zombies are attacking the boat, when Roger arrives at the lake on a bicycle, only to find out ‘these’ zombies are toothless algae eaters. The police arrive to shut down the lake, but Anita convinces the police the zombies do not exist, because the zombies are helping the lake’s ecosystem, not harming people.

My one complaint about this book is its cover. My students want to read scary zombie stories, ie. GOOSEBUMPS, not ones with comic BART SIMPSON covers.  My school library patrons won’t be checking out this book. CHANGE the cover, not the story, and this will be a hit.