Wednesday Addams has darkened our screens once again in Netflix’s fantastic new(ish) show Wednesday! With the titular character played by Jenna Ortega, this new series features the whole Addams bunch and some fun new characters--I’m looking at you, Enid!
Whether you're watching the series for the first time and can't get enough, or you binged it and need something to fill the Wednesday-shaped hole in your life, here are some books that capture the creepy, kooky vibe of the show!
If you like a mystery, try:
The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson
Rory, of Boueuxlieu, Louisiana, is spending a year at a London boarding school when she witnesses a murder by a Jack the Ripper copycat and becomes involved with the very unusual investigation.
Available in print in the library. Click here for the e-book!
If you like horror, try:
Horrid, by Katrina Leno
Following her father's death, Jane North-Robinson and her mom move from sunny California to the dreary, dilapidated old house in Maine where her mother grew up.
As the cold New England autumn arrives, and Jane settles in to her new home, she finds solace in old books and memories of her dad. She steadily begins making new friends, but also faces bullying from the resident "bad seed," struggling to tamp down her own worst nature in response. Jane's mom also seems to be spiraling with the return of her childhood home, but she won't reveal why. Then Jane discovers that the "storage room" her mom has kept locked isn't for storage at all -- it's a little girl's bedroom, left untouched for years and not quite as empty of inhabitants as it appears…
Is it grief? Mental illness? Or something more…horrid?
Available in print in the library. Click here for the electronic and audio versions!
For fierce Furs, try:
Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce
After a Fenris, or werewolf, killed their grandmother and almost killed them, sisters Scarlett and Rosie March devote themselves to hunting and killing the beasts that prey on teenaged girls, learning how to lure them with red cloaks and occasionally using the help of their old friend, Silas, the woodsman's son.
Available in print in the library. Click here for the electronic and audio versions!
If you're intrigued by the Fangs, try:
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black
When seventeen-year-old Tana wakes up following a party in the aftermath of a violent vampire attack, she travels to Coldtown, a quarantined Massachusetts city full of vampires, with her ex-boyfriend and a mysterious vampire boy in tow.
Available in print in the library. Click here for the electronic and audio versions!
If you side with the Scales, try:
Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man's mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain...
Available in print in the library. Click here for the electronic and audio versions!
For another dangerous boarding school, try:
Truly Devious, by Maureen Johnson
New at Ellingham Academy, Stevie Bell tries to solve both a murder on campus and the cold case of a double kidnapping.
Print copy available in the library. Click here for the electronic and audio versions!
If you enjoy the grumpy/sunshine duo of Wednesday and Enid, try:
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
When Agnes Nutter predicts that the end of the world is days away, the demon Crowley and his angel friend, Aziraphale, team up to save humankind.
Print copy available in the library. Click here for electronic and audio versions!
If the show has gotten you into Edgar Allen Poe, try:
His Hideous Heart, edited by Dahlia Adler
Thirteen of Poe's terrifying works are reimagined in new and unexpected ways for modern readers. Poe's own stories are included for comparison. Print copy available in the library. Click here for electronic and audio versions!
And don't miss these titles, which are either read or referenced in Wednesday:
"The Gold Bug," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Black Cat," and, of course, "The Raven" are all Edgar Allen Poe stories alluded to in the show--especially during the Poe Cup. His Hideous Heart up above has some of these stories in it, but for a complete collection of Poe's poems, stories, and essays, you want Poetry and Tales or The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings.
Wednesday speaks Italian because it's "the native tongue of Machiavelli." The North High Library has his most famous piece of writing, The Prince, in the collection The Prince, Utopia, and Ninety-five Theses. It's basically a Renaissance handbook for unscrupulous politicians.
Wednesday reveals that her first crush was Jean-Paul Sartre, whose play No Exit she quotes when she says, "Hell is other people."
Wednesday's dorm is named Ophelia Hall after a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet who does indeed "kill herself after being driven mad by her family."
Wednesday's theory that "one coincidence is just a coincidence, two are a clue, and three are proof" is inspired by the detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's novel The ABC Murders. We don't have that title in the library--yet--but we do have plenty of Christie's other murder mysteries.
Ms. Thornhill suggests Wednesday read Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, who was only 19 when she wrote the novel and basically invented science fiction!
The Hyde is a monster inspired by the main characters in Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.