Shark night

Boy meets shark for the delectation of a TV audience. What could go wrong? Twelve-year-old Liam Brachman has no intention of being the star of his filmmaker mom's new shark tank show for the Danger Channel, but when the hired actor suddenly goes down with a last-minute injury, Liam finds himself in the water--facing not the promised harmless hammerhead but a terrifyingly toothy bull shark! That's only the first in a succession of nasty shocks for Liam that Stine spins out to improbable but entertaining lengths thanks to more all-too-eager filmmakers urging him into a flimsy-looking shark cage, an encounter with a tentacled sea monster, a swim in a piranha lagoon, and the like. Each seemingly inevitable moment of doom leads to one narrow escape after another. For all of this, Liam's worst nemesis is actually Rosa, his scene-stealing little sister from hell, who chants cutely horrific ditties ("It's shark time, / It's shark time, / I can't wait, I can't wait / For Liam to be bait…") while repeatedly showing off a perfectly fiendish gift for getting her big brother into pickles. As it turns out, aside from Liam's terror, nothing here is quite as it seems--and yet, even though no actual blood is spilled, a final twist suggests that that might not continue to be the case. Main characters present white. A finny frolic to delight younger Goosebumps fans.(Horror. 8-11) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.