FICTION

It Found Us

Sourcebooks. Sept. 2023. 288p. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9781728259499.
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Gr 4-8–Twelve-year-old Hazel considers herself an amateur detective of sorts, and is planning to start a podcast about mysteries she solves around her town. The cemetery is rumored to be haunted, so when she hears her brother Den and his friends talking about a sneaky game of nighttime hide-and-seek there, she follows him. But when Den’s friend Everett doesn’t get found by the seeker, and doesn’t turn up hours later, Hazel realizes she has a real high-stakes mystery on her hands. As she tries to follow the clues to find Everett, strange and creepy things start to happen. Hazel smells smoke where there isn’t any, and they encounter a terrifying presence with red and white clothes and a stitched-up mouth. As Hazel digs into the cemetery’s past looking for clues, she uncovers a connection with a horrific accident from many years ago. Can she learn enough to put the ghost to rest and save Everett? Once again, Currie has taken a real-life historical tragedy and created an engaging supernatural tale around those events. Students will be fascinated by the true story outlined in the epilogue. Perfect for young horror fans, there are just enough scares to satisfy without being terrifying.
VERDICT Well-written scary novels are few and far between for this age group. All libraries serving middle grades should have this on the shelf.

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