Harvest House
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
NSK Neustadt Laureate and New York Times best-selling author Cynthia Leitich Smith delivers a thrilling cross-genre follow-up to the acclaimed Hearts Unbroken. Deftly leading readers to the literary crossroads of contemporary realism and haunting mystery, Cynthia Leitich Smith revisits the world of her American Indian Youth Literature Award winner Hearts Unbroken. Halloween is near, and Hughie Wolfe is volunteering at a new rural attraction: Harvest House. He’s excited to take part in the fun, spooky show—until he learns that an actor playing the vengeful spirit of an “Indian maiden,” a ghost inspired by local legend, will headline. Folklore aside, unusual things have been happening at night at the crossroads near Harvest House. A creepy man is stalking teenage girls and young women, particularly Indigenous women; dogs are fretful and on edge; and wild animals are behaving strangely. While Hughie weighs how and when to speak up about the bigoted legend, he and his friends begin to investigate the crossroads and whether it might be haunted after all. As Moon rises on All Hallow’s Eve, will they be able to protect themselves and their community? Gripping and evocative, Harvest House showcases a versatile storyteller at her spooky, unsettling best.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
High school sophomore Hughie Wolfe, a citizen of the Muscogee Nation, feels adrift after his school's fall theater production, in which he expected to get the lead role, is canceled due to budget cuts. In lieu of pursuing the stage, he volunteers as an actor at a haunted house fundraiser located at a rural crossroads that is rumored to be beset by the ghost of an "Indian maiden." What Hughie thought would be a lighthearted Halloween attraction instead feels like a cruel joke when he's cast as an "Indian ghost" and learns that the organizer intends to use insensitive characterizations of Indigenous persons to populate a "haunted Indian burial ground" setting ("They're dancing around, making goofy war whoops, chasing people," Hughie reports). Alternating chapters, meanwhile, feature eerie first-person narration by Celeste, the Native woman haunting the crossroads. When a video purportedly depicting Celeste's attempts to protect brown girls from a mysterious "bad man" goes viral, Hughie's Kansas town plunges into chaos. Using short, propulsive chapters, Smith (Hearts Unbroken), a member of the Muscogee Nation, intertwines thoughtful conversation surrounding the racism faced by Indigenous teenagers with a convincing ghost story to craft a spine-tingling, edge-of-the-seat chiller. An author's note and glossary conclude. Ages 12–up.
