The Reading Bug

Darkness falls so quickly in Howland its people have no word for evening. One minute the sky is light, the next minute it is black—an impenetrable, suffocating black, unlit by moon or stars. Then good people bar their doors, for fearsome kinderstalk leave the forest to prowl among the houses, looking for children to steal. Yet when Annie Trewitt overhears her uncle making terrible plans for her, she flees to the only place she’s sure he will not follow: the forest.  Annie never expects to survive the night, but soon she finds neither the kinderstalk nor the people of Howland are what they first appear. Her journey will take her from the depths of the forest to the glittering halls of the palace—and ever closer to an evil darker and more vast than the night itself.

REVIEWS:

A Kirkus starred review:

This unique tale shines with utterly believable strangeness. Annie lives with her aunt and uncle in an area where crops don’t grow and people fear being snatched by the bestial kinderstalk in darkness. Night falls suddenly in this moonless land. Overhearing that her uncle’s selling her to the Drop, where (she discovers later) miners hang by rope over a cliff to chisel precious ringstone out of the rock face, Annie runs away into the night. She has only the dress on her back—with secret pockets sewn into it by her beloved late sister—and two loyal, knowing cats. A garden, grossly vivid for wintertime, reeks of the same “tinny sweetness” as the docile miners. Through repeated captures and escapes, with fairy-tale motifs always present but never dominating, Annie slowly unravels the mysteries of her circumstances. Readers sometimes know more than Annie, sometimes less. Breen’s finely tuned storytelling—pithy description, quick and keen emotion, broad trust of readers’ intelligence—offers equal gratification whether readers spot clues and connections early or late. Both grounded and wondrous.

In The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books:

“With allusions to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and darker Grimm tales, the author creates an oppressively sinister atmosphere, and the impeccable pacing and slow revelations will keep the reader guessing, but never frustrated. Darkness and secrecy permeate the story as Annie’s perceptions of good and evil continuously change in the face of betrayals. Annie herself is an intriguing protagonist, a young girl learning to trust her instincts as she begins to question the judgment of those she has previously believed in. The conclusion resolves the major mysteries but the ambiguous and sometimes unhappy endings for several of the subplots maintain the story’s overall creepiness, and readers looking for an authentic scare will not be disappointed.”—BCCB

From Booklist:

Annie lives under the care of her repulsive uncle and aunt. When she learns that they plan to send her to the infamous Drop, where children are lowered down a perilous cliff face to chip off bits of valuable ringstone, she flees despite her fear of the dreaded, wolflike Kinderstalk in the surrounding forest. In a series of heart-stopping adventures, Annie discovers that even in her grim, cruel, and perilous world, allies can appear where they are least expected. Her essential solitude is reinforced by her reluctance to share everything she knows with anyone, even those who seem wholly on her side. While secrets are revealed slowly in the novel, the action is fast-paced and the plot twists in surprising directions at times . . .This first novel offers an exciting adventure mixed with  fantasy.