Haunted Hospital

Haunted Hospital is the story of four teens engaged in a round of Spirits and Spooks, a thrilling role-playing game along the lines of Dungeons and Dragons. Xander and his friends, Li, Priya, and Omar, are looking for a new creepy place to set up their game after they become bored with playing in the local cemetery. When Xander finds a way to get into an old abandoned hospital, he thinks it’s the perfect place to set up a new “mission” for his teammates despite Priya’s objections and a handful of stories about the hospital being haunted. When the game begins and strange things start happening, Xander and his friends have to wonder if the scary elements of their fictional game aren’t so fictional after all.

This novel is one of Orca’s redesigned hi-lo series which seeks to address the needs of all struggling readers. Haunted Hospital is a slightly larger book than past “Orca Currents”, making it easier to handle. There is more space between words, and it features a highly accessible font that Orca calls “dyslexia-friendly”. Overall, I can see how this redesign will be helpful for a number of different groups of readers. The chapters are all of a reasonable length – long enough to give a good flow to the story, but short enough to avoid being daunting – and the language is clear and simple without being dull or repetitive.

Based on the small amount of backstory readers get, the four main characters seem to be a relatively diverse bunch which is always important in fiction. Little physical description is provided, allowing readers to picture the characters for themselves. Readers learn that Omar originally moved from Egypt and that, at one point, Priya was hospitalized for a serious illness; however, other than that, readers are left to interpret the characters as they see fit. More detailed character development might help readers connect to the characters in a more meaningful way, but that’s a big ask in a 116-page novel.

In terms of the story, itself, Haunted Hospital is well-paced and has a good, creepy atmosphere. I suspect that horror-lovers might appreciate a few more jump scares or spooky scenes both before and after the characters learn the truth about what’s happening. Without giving away the ending, I will say that I was expecting supernatural activity and not logical explanations. In the end, I got both, but I wonder if the writing might be a bit too subtle for emerging readers to catch the sly twist.

Overall, Haunted Hospital is another good title from the “Orca Currents” series, and it would be a positive addition to an intermediate school library or classroom bookshelf.