Nightmare Academy

review by

Tony Nappa

Thirteen-year-old Tony Nappa gives you the 411 on exciting new suspense fiction for tweenagers! 

NIGHTMARE ACADEMY by Frank Peretti (Tommy Nelson)

This was a good book because it had lots of good moments that were funny and also scary!

Nightmare Academy is the second book in Frank Peretti’s The Veritas Project series, and is about the Springfield family. They are undercover agents for the government and try to solve mysteries.

Elijah and Elisha Springfield are 15-year-old twins and their parents are Nate and Sarah. In this book they discover a runaway boy named Alvin Rogers who appears to have gone crazy. All he will do is repeat over and over the name “Nightmare Academy.” So the Springfields have to solve the mystery of what the Nightmare Academy is and why it drove Alvin crazy.

Elijah and Elisha go under cover as runaways from home and get invited to stay at the Knight-Moore Academy. They agree and go to the Academy. While there they notice everyone does whatever they want and are whoever they want to be. After a fight to save Elisha, Elijah gets taken away by the teachers and put through a “maze” to make him go crazy. Eventually with Elisha’s help he gets free but then they discover a bomb! Will Elisha and Elijah be able to defuse it before it explodes and kills the students at the academy? (You’ll have to read the book to find out!)

I am going to tell you three things I liked about this book. One was when Elijah refused to give up, even though he was tired and weak from going through the “maze.” It was also exciting when Elisha, to help Elijah, sent her brother a message in Morse code. One last part I liked was the humor and creativity in how everybody kept changing their names and where they were from. 

Kids who like thrillers and action stories will like this book. I would recommend it for ages 10 and up because I think all sorts of kids will like it.  

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Tony Nappa is a seventh-grader who has authored three books: Lunch Box Laughs; Lunch Box Trivia; and Lunch Box Promises