Need something to spook you this Halloween? How about some award winning horror? The Night Gardener is on the Bluebonnet list for this year. Here's a booktalk:
Molly and her brother are immigrants from Ireland whose
parents didn’t make it to America with them. It’s up to Molly to take care of
her brother now and he’s not well at all. So th
ey agree to take a job at the
town’s creepiest, most secluded house so that they’ll be able to get hot meals
and have a roof over their heads. But the mother who lives there is mean. And
the son is a bully. Worst of all is the tree that isn’t just up next to the
house, it’s also inside it. So is a strange man every night with a really tall
hat and a watering can. Who is he and what is he doing? To top it off, every
day Molly and her brother live there, they become paler and sicker looking too.
What is the deal with this house? Is this too steep a price to pay for a safe
place to live? Is it safe?
Another great creepy title is The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe. It's on this year's Lone Star list.
At his old school, kids made fun of the creatures Gabe’s dad
made for a living- monstrous puppets. So
when Gabe’s house is burned down and his family moves in with his grandmother,
he sees it as a chance to get away from being known as puppet boy and start over. His first
friend is a neighborhood boy named Seth. They play in the woods that summer
every day. It’s a game Seth invented involving a monstrous baby-eating hunter
that they must fight. When school starts, he makes new friends who warn him how
weird and unpredictable Seth is. When Gabe tires of playing the hunter with
him, Seth explodes and says the hunter will come after him and his friends. And
strange things do start happening. Like the night his dad’s new puppet seems to
come to life and then disappears. Or the invisible things his baby sister talks
to. What are they dealing with? Is it something supernatural or a twisted
prank?
