Mine by Delilah Dawson

Genre: Middle Grade, Horror, Mystery
Source: Purchased

 
I originally bought this for my school shelves. Near the end of the year no one had checked it out so I began my stack of books to read over the summer. This book was on the top of the stack. It is the first book I have read all summer. The story is about a family who moves across the country to Florida. The house they got for a good deal is as the main character describes it, "A horder's nightmare." The author did a great job of keeping the suspense going throughout the whole book. There is not one, but two ghosts in the book. Lily's parents don't tell her about the tragedy in the house that caused them to get it so cheap. They don't have the whole story. The reason they had to move across the country is not revealed until the very end. The author drops hints throughout the book to the tragedies that happened to all of the different characters. I will definitely recommend this to my students this next year.

Pricker Boy - Reade Scott Whinnem

Publisher - Random House, 2009
Genre:  Horror
Age:  MG/YA
Pages: 288
Source:  Purchase

Stucks Cumberland is ready for summer vacation.  It is a time when many of his friends return to their vacation homes.  However, their vacation doesn't go the way they plan.  Something is in the woods.  No one goes beyond Widow's Stone for fear of running into the Pricker Boy.

The Pricker Boy was a young boy tricked into believing his fur trapping father was keeping his mother in a cage in the forest and feeding her raw bits of meat.  The boy goes looking for his mother.  When he doesn't return, the kids start rumors that the thorns have taken him and now he seeks revenge against those who were so cruel to him.  He has taken on the form of a being made from and covered with thorns.

This is the story that Ronnie tells around the campfire every year.  All of Stuck's friends say that it is not real but when Stucks claims to have seen the Pricker Boy, they all start wondering how much of it is true.  Mysteriously the items they have given to the forest and the Pricker Boy to keep him from getting revenge on them have all mysteriously returned.  What does it mean?

I wasn't really sure what to make of this book.  I couldn't put it down.  I still don't know if the Pricker Boy was someone they made up from legend or if he was real.  There were other issues going on and the author purposely left the ending the way he did so the reader could decide.  This is what made this such a delicious read.  I read this in e-book form and have ordered several hard copies for my shelves at school.  My students who are fans of horror will love this book.