Children of the Dark

Will Burgess is used to hard knocks. Abandoned by his father, son of a drug-addicted mother, and charged with raising his six-year-old sister, Will has far more to worry about than most high school freshmen. To make matters worse, Mia Samuels, the girl of Will’s dreams, is dating his worst enemy, the most sadistic upperclassman at Shadeland High. Will’s troubles, however, are just beginning. Because one of the nation’s most notorious criminals—the Moonlight Killer—has escaped from prison and is headed straight toward Will’s hometown. And something else is lurking in Savage Hollow, the forest surrounding Will’s rundown house. Something ancient and infinitely evil. When the worst storm of the decade descends on Shadeland, Will and his friends must confront unfathomable horrors. Everyone Will loves—his mother, his little sister, Mia, and his friends—will be threatened. And very few of them will escape with their lives.

From School Library Journal

Taking care of his six-year-old sister and his mother, who is addicted to drugs, has forced 15-year-old Will to grow up quickly in his small Southern town of Shadeland. Will and his group of outcast friends face the usual torments: bullying by the in-crowd and girls who seem just out of reach. But things are not always what they seem. Mia, the girl of Will's dreams, seems to reciprocate Will's feelings. All goes well—until the bullies enter the scene and one of the girls is hauled off into the woods by a monsterlike hand. An intricate intermingled plot involving evil creatures keeps this title from being a typical coming-of-age story. The first half of the novel introduces the characters and backstory, and by then, the mayhem of a serial killer and mystical monsters becomes believable, though readers will be wondering what's going on. The unbelievably irresponsible police officers might be problematic if this book were a more realistic coming-of-age tale, but in a more fantastical genre, they make sense. VERDICT This book will be hit with a wide variety of high school and older middle school students.—Jake Pettit, Enka Schools, Istanbul, Turkey

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