Curiosity House: The Shrunken Head

A woman plunges off a balcony and dies; a man's body is found hanging from the rafters and disguised as bruised and swollen; a woman is said to have died and had her brain splattered by a streetcar; a man is found dead from poisoning; a boy slings knives at people, pinning them against the wall by their clothing; dead bodies are seen and described in a morgue; a girl dodges being hit by a speeding train; numerous morbid references to death or related objects, such as a mummified toe and an eyeball floating in a jar.

Name-calling: "idiot" "old hag," "dolt."

Brief but numerous references to the smell of tobacco, cigarette butts, smoke in the air. Requests for whiskey; a cop says he wishes he had a pint.

Parents need to know that Curiosity House: Shrunken Head by Lauren Oliver (Liesl & Po) is a fast-paced, engaging tale of four orphans, each in possession of a carnivalesque skill, who band together to solve the mystery of a shrunken head that disappears from the museum they live in. Along the way they discover numerous dead bodies that are somewhat graphically described and maneuver their way around adults and authority figures, while protecting one another and avoiding getting blamed for the crimes. Though the story is enveloped in a cloud of the macabre, it's an entertaining, warm-hearted tale of survival, sleuthing, and friendship.