READING LEVEL: 3.7 AR POINTS: 6.0
(Ages 12 , grades 7-9)
Michael L. Printz Award

This story is a little too dark for me and deals with some pretty heavy stuff, not at all what I expected it to be about and is probably not one I’m going to give to one of my 10 grandies.

It starts off with a small group of 13-year-olds playing a game called “Death” in an old, dark and wet mining pit. It’s not okay for kids to play with death, or conjuring up angels or demons or ghosts. This could surely open up a doorway for other evils to enter into their lives if they were to play these types of games. Even the adults in the story, once the kids were caught playing this game, deemed it too dangerous. They had the town close up the opening of the pit and reported them to their parents and expelled the leader...John Askew.

I felt this part could have been left out or even dealt with in some other way in the story. Otherwise, this was a pretty good story showing sacrifice and love for family, alcoholism and abuse, and friendship.

Kit Watson and his family returned home to Stoneygate, an old coal-mining town in England, to help take care of his grandfather, who had Alzheimer’s. The Watson’s, along with a few others still living in Stoneygate, including the dark and sinister 13-year-old John Askew, had deep roots to this town and its mining history.

Back in 1821, there had been a mining accident that killed 117 people. Most were children, from ages 9-15. Among those killed were Kit Watson’s 13-year-old uncle, his namesake, Christopher Watson, and also John Askew’s grandfather, his namesake, John Askew, was killed. Death seemed to draw the two boys together.

John Askew was being drawn deeper and deeper into the dark side because of his alcoholic father who beat him and tore him down mentally, and he spent most of his time in his drawings or in his cult-like practices in the mining pits.

After the disappearance of John, and the town believing he may actually be dead somewhere, Kit found John dealing with his greatest struggle at the end, hidden deep inside one of the mining pits, deciding if he should kill himself or his father. Kit offered his truest and greatest friendship and stayed with John the whole night. Kit began to tell his story, which turned out to be spiritually connected to John’s ancestor. As Kit was telling the story, they both saw visions of the story coming alive. The only way Kit knew for sure that the dreams weren’t just dreams was because Kit woke up in the morning with colorful pebbles left in his hand as a thank you from John’s ancestor. Those were real.

Kit's story, along with John's art illustrations, were perfectly captured together by their visions that night and hung in the halls of the school. This was the start of a true and lasting friendship. ( )

A complex tale of grandparents and grandchildren; good kids and not so good kids; the allure of danger and fear; ghosts of the past; and the nature of reality all blended together into one, fairly short novel.
Kit's family moves to Stonygate after his grandmother's death. He forms a close bond with his grandfather, an old mine worker from the town's early days. As his grandfather tells Kit stories from the past, Kit begins to think he is seeing ghosts of children who died long ago. Meanwhile, he has joined a group of kids from school who play a fearful ritualistic game, in which they go into an abandoned mine pit and sit in a circle around a knife. The knife is spun, and whoever it is pointing to when it stops - that person must "die." The death is figurative, but frightening and disturbing all the same. The two key players are John Askew, who leads the game and comes from a not-so-good family, and Allie, a precocious aspiring actress, who views it all as practice for the great acting rolls she will have in her future. Then, (if that's not enough), when Kit begins to write a story about a prehistoric family for a school assignment, he begins to see characters from his story loitering around as well.
Full of the sorts of themes and symbolism that will make a high school English teacher just salivate with excitement, it provides an entertaining and somewhat creepy tale even for those (like myself) who probably missed a fair amount of the deeper message. ( )

Signed by the author ( )

Kit's family returns to rural England, mining country, to care for his grandfather, a former pit coal miner. Kit connects with the spirits (?) of the child workers who died over the centuries in mine accidents. Kit is an imaginative writer, at first writing the old stories his grandfather tells then, with the encouragement of his teacher, feeling the tale of ancient cave peoples come alive in his thoughts. Two other teens play a major role in this story: Allie, energetic young actress-wanna-be looking for experiences, and Askew, vivid artist but otherwise sullen loner who skips school.
At first I was afraid this would be another of the vampire/evil stories, and the teens were certainly following some ancient impulses. Yet the strength of the Kit pulls the tale in a new direction, shows how there is goodness deep inside even the most troubled of us, how much need there is for a hand to reach out in friendship.
Strongly recommend ( )

The Watson family moves to Stoneygate, an old coal-mining town, to care for Kit's recently widowed grandfather. Kit's grandfather tells him stories of the mine's past and the history of the Watson family.