This book is one of a three part series. I only bought the first book to see if the series was good enough to finish. It's not fair when a story is cut short by the end of a book. :) Now, I have to go buy the books to finish the story. And after reading this book, it is going to be worth it.
May Ellen Bird is not a typical girl. She has a hard time making friends and therefore does not get along well with others. She is an individual in the way she acts, thinks and dresses. Her best friend is her hairless cat, Somber Kitty. She lives in a town that is abandoned besides her and her mom living in a mansion. Her bedroom is covered in pictures she drew at a younger age. They are of crazy, fictional creations of her imagination.
May is threatened with boarding school in New York City. She explores the ruins of the town and finds a letter that she has never seen before. It turns out, the letter is addressed to her. After seeing the lady hidden in the tree (drawn on the envelope), May starts seeing ghosts in her house. She runs away and discovers a lake in the forest by her house. Funny thing is, the town is in a serious drought that has existed for awhile. When May finds the lake, there is a strangeness about it. Once she falls in, May discovers that she is in the after life. The book starts her journey avoiding the Bogeyman and making her back home.
This book is written by an author that is great at pulling readers into the worlds that he creates. This is the first book in a series that is very creative in getting non-readers to read.
This is THE book that I got middle school students, mostly boys but girls too, to start reading. The book is written from the perspective of 12-year-old Ryan. It is not a book however; it is his journal. Ryan lives in a town called Skeleton Creek and his best friend is Sarah Fincher. She is very inquisitive and convinces Ryan to try and find out the mystery behind their town and its name. There are ghosts and secrets that Ryan and Sarah find out about rather quickly.
Ryan's journal stops in places and gives you a password to a website: www.sarahfincher.com. Sarah tells half of the story through her postings on her website. This is what pulled my students into the book. They read a journal and then watch a video online.
The sequel, Ghost in the Machine, is coming out October 1, 2009. I cannot wait!!!
So, I literally finished this book last night. I was told by a student that this was a boring book. However, this is a student who stops reading if a realistic but entertaining story hasn't captured him in the first few pages.
This is the first book in a series called The Haunting of Derek Stone. Derek is the main character who tells this story in first person. The book is very easy to read because it is told from a 12-year-old boy's point of view.
I was a little bored at first and was wondering where the ghosts came in. The second chapter gets very scary because Derek describes a train accident that he was in with his father and brother. Both are not found and presumed to be dead. Derek starts to research what really happened when his brother comes home but acts like a totally different person.
I was disappointed with the lack of ghosts in this story. However, they really start to appear in the last few chapters of the book. The kicker is that they are not really ghosts. They are souls inhabiting bodies. Trust me, Derek explains it to you. I don't want to ruin the story. I thought it was very clever of the author to leave the story hanging at the end of the book. It makes you want to go get the next book in the series to find out what happens.
Good thing I bought the second book when I bought the first, huh?
