Skeleton Creek

The suspense mystery, Skeleton Creek is the first novel of a series by Patrick Carmen. I read on Scholastic's website that it is for children ages 10 to 18 years. The age range reflects readability and not necessarily content appropriateness. The book follows two teenagers, Ryan McCray and Sarah Fincher in their small mountain town of Skeleton Creek. They become bored and curious about the town's name and mining history. The become interested in the dredge, a monstrous mining machine in the forest, because they heard it was haunted by the ghost of Joe Bush, a miner who had died at that time. Ryan has an obsession of composing spooky stories in his journal and Sarah has an obsession of investigating while videotaping. These obsessions cause Ryan to injure his leg one night when they sneak into the dredge. The injury is the last straw for both sets of parents; they forbid the two teenagers to see each other. However, the two teenagers continue communicating secretly online while Ryan is laid up at home in a cast and Sarah makes several trips to the dredge by herself, recording everything. She sends these videos of her findings to Ryan with encrypted passwords. Readers of the book can go online to her website and watch Sarah's videos along with Ryan. This allows the reader to see Sarah's side of the story in video alongside of Ryan's side of the story in writing. The teenagers eventually piece together connections between the dredge, Joe Bush's ghost haunting it, and a secret alchemistic society called the Crossbones, of which Ryan's dad may be a part of. They theorize that Joe Bush's death was murder and that he has returned to guard his gold at the dredge. The end of the book leaves the reader hanging when he or she views Sarah's video online. The kids are trapped by Joe Bush's ghost in a secret room in the dredge hidden below the gears. As the camera's battery dies the readers hear the kids plead for help.

 Sarah Fincher

 

 

Pausing during Ryan's jounral to watch a video by Sarah was such an engaging way to read this book! I am not going to lie though, I wasn't scared when I was reading Ryan's journal, but when I watched Sarah's videos, I was legit freaked out! They definently had my friend and I jumping. This lead me to the conclusion of how would parents feel having their children watch this somewhat frightening videos? Permission slips would most likely have to be given out to explain the content of them. In addition, what do you do with the students who do not have computers at home? I came to the conclusion, that I would assign the reading for home and have us watch the videos in class together. This way I could also see their reactions to them! I am a big fan of mysteries, so I would definently enjoy teaching this. Also, I think it would be a great way to engage reluctant readers.

 



 

The first video (House of Usher)