Skip to main content

The Haunted Lake

 


The Haunted Lake
Written by: P.J. Lynch
Candlewick press, 2020. Picture Book.

 The Haunted Lake by P.J. Lynch is not for the faint of heart or younger children even though it is an illustrated picture book. It's a beautiful haunting story about a village that is flooded with water after the river is dammed. The local people claim that it is a haunted lake. But a local fisherman and his young son Jacob don't listen to the stories. They stay in the village that was once their home where Jacob's mother is buried in the cemetery beneath the water. Jacob and his father catch fish in the waters above the town and then take the fish to market to sell making a small meager living. One night while Jacob is out fishing he disappears lured beneath the waters by the ghosts who live there.

This is a ghost story about undying love with stunning illustrations. The author builds two worlds, the world above the water which is bright and cheerful, and the world below that is eerie and icy cold with the remnants of a lost village hidden beneath the watery waves. This is the perfect book for older readers who are looking for an enticing love story with a little bit of ghostly suspense and a lot of striking, brilliant art work. Check out The Haunted Lake and get ready to meet the ghosts from the village of Spetzia.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...