The Creek - Hardcover

Holm, Jennifer L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006000133X ISBN 13: 9780060001339

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

Caleb Devlin is a legend on Mockingbird Lane, the boy who terrorized an entire town before he got sent away. They say he hurt other kids, tortured animals, set fires, and did things grown-ups speak of only in whispers. But that was all before Penny and her little brother moved here.

Now Caleb's back, older and more dangerous than ever, and terrible things have started happening again. The whole town knows he's responsible, but the police can't do anything without proof. So Penny and her friends have no choice but to try to stop him themselves.

Except now he's after them.

A sleepy summer is filled with dread in this tense and absorbing thriller by acclaimed Newbery Honor author Jennifer L. Holm.

About this title

About the Author:

Jennifer L. Holm is the grandniece of Alice Amelia Holm, a Finnish-American girl born on the Nasel River in Washington state during the nineteenthcentury.The recent discovery of her grandaunt's diary and her ancestors' adventures in the Pacific Northwest inspired the character of May Amelia.

Ms. Holm produces television commercials and lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is working on her next book.

From Booklist:

Gr. 6-8. Holm, author of several historical novels about girls grappling with puberty, gives the theme a contemporary twist, adding trappings of a creepy thriller that pushes the story well beyond the wan child-plays-detective stuff so prevalent in youth mysteries. Penny, almost 13, is content to spend her summer hanging out with the boys on her block. But this year, their games are charged by rumors about exciting, sexy, Caleb Devlin, who gives Penny strange, shivery thrills. When increasingly disturbing things happen in the neighborhood, culminating in the vicious murder of a young child, Caleb is the prime suspect. Taut, well plotted, and with a smooth arc of suspense, this does more than deliver a good story; it also addresses some of puberty's difficult emotional changes and raises challenging questions about moral issues. To Holm's credit, everything isn't necessarily resolved, Caleb is a "bad boy," (though not in the expected way), and despite the dead child, there's no over-the-top violence. What stands out most, perhaps, is Holm's chipping away at the literary taboo Robert Cormier cracked open in his Rag and Bone Shop (2001); child murder and young children as murderers are not the province of children's books. Kids often see worse on the evening news, but this skillful, surprising novel may raise some adult eyebrows. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 006000133X
• ISBN 13: 9780060001339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232