Author: Eden Royce
Genre: horror
Similar books: The Keeper by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
Mothman's Curse by Christine Hayes
Rating:
.JPG)
Summary (provided by publisher): At night, Roddie still dreams of sitting at his mother’s feet while she braids his Afro down. But that’s a memory from before. Before his mom died in a tragic accident. Before he was taken in by an aunt he barely knows. Before his aunt brought him to Dogwood House, the creepiest place Roddie has ever seen. It was his family’s home for over a hundred years. Now the house—abandoned and rotting, draped in Spanish moss that reminds him too much of hair—is his home too.
Aunt Angie has returned to South Carolina to take care of Roddie and reconnect with their family’s hoodoo roots. Roddie, however, can’t help but feel lost. His mom had never told him anything about hoodoo, Dogwood House, or their family. And as they set about fixing the house up, Roddie discovers that there is even more his mother never said. Like why she left home when she was seventeen, never to return. Or why she insisted Aunt Angie always wear her hair in locs. Or what she knew of the strange secrets hidden deep within Dogwood House—secrets that have awoken again, and are reaching out to Roddie…
My opinion: The set-up could have made this a total cliche of a book - a grieving child moves to the old abandoned home where creepy things start happening. It could have been a standard haunted house with adults who don't believe what the isolated child is telling them. Royce takes a different approach, with Roddie and his aunt both slowly learning more about hoodoo and their family history, those thruths helping them unravel what is happening in the house and to keep it from happening again. It's not the most frightening book for middle grade readers but it is interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment