Fiction Addict

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery

Publisher: Scholastic

Publication Date: February 10th, 2009

Reviewed by Jake Chism

Ryan McCray and Sarah Fincher always felt like something strange was happening in their hometown of Skeleton Creek. Their fears are fully realized one fateful night when they decide to sneak around in the old mining dredge in the woods. Ryan finds something that is so terrifying it sends him over a rail into the darkness below. The next thing he knows he is in a hospital bed with a broken leg and a fuzzy memory about what he saw.

Ryan and Sarah’s parents decide to separate them as punishment, but the mystery behind the dredge proves to be too much to keep them apart. Since Ryan is housebound, Sarah captures her investigation on film so Ryan can see everything she discovers about the dredge. Likewise, Ryan spends his days researching Skeleton Creek online, finding more questions than answers. Everything they find leads them back to the dredge and the dark secret hidden inside. If they go back they may find the answers, but they may not make it out alive.

When I first saw Skeleton Creek on the shelf I thought it was a DVD because of the clever packaging. I then realized it was a book and read the description. A novel that uses online videos to tell the complete story? And a ghost/mystery story at that? My interest was more than piqued and I was all in.

Patrick Carman is a storyteller extraordinaire and from the opening lines we are effortlessly sucked into Ryan and Sarah’s story. The book element of this story is written in journal form from Ryan’s perspective. Carman really nails the first person narrative here and actually makes you feel like you are reading a journal. The design of the book and the handwriting font all work together well to sell the idea.

Throughout the story we are presented actual passwords to a website where we get to see the videos Sara shares with Ryan. The video element of the story is a really fun and imaginative way to get us more involved. I was very impressed with the quality of the videos and how effective they were. Even though this is a young adult story, I’m not ashamed to admit I jumped more than once during the creepiest scenes.

While this is classified as young adult fiction, I would strongly urge parents to read the book and watch the videos before your children. The story is clean, but some of the subject matter is quite intense and the videos have some really frightening moments.

Skelton Creek is the first book in this new series and Patrick Carman leaves things wide open for Book 2. Literary purists might scoff at this new storytelling concept. All I know is how much fun I had with this whole experience. I can’t imagine how much work goes into creating a project like this. In the end, the results are what matters and Skeleton Creek works on every level.