Bruchac, Joseph. Whisper In the Dark.

BRUCHAC, Joseph. Whisper in the dark. HarperCollins. 174p. illus. c2005. 0-06-058087-9. $15.99. J

Bruchac has written another good scary story with wide appeal for middle school students. Maddie lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where her father's Narragansett Indian heritage is strong inside her, even after her parents were killed in a car accident. With this grim tragedy to deal with, she still loves horror stories, and shares this interest with her friend Roger whose mother teaches Gothic literature at Brown University. Maddie starts getting strange whispered phone calls, and her dog is savagely attacked; she is frightened. And she remembers all too well the local Indian myth of the evil Whisperer in the Dark. She can only confide in Roger because she knows the caring adults in her life would think it's all from her troubled imagination. When she realizes that her beloved aunt has been lured home by the Whisperer, and then dragged into the network of tunnels beneath their old house, she has to call on the police, her friends, and her Indian vision of Thunder to survive.

Bruchac interweaves suspense with Indian folklore effortlessly, and the spooky b/w illustrations by Sally Wern Comport, which have the quality of a graphic novel, add to the reading experience. Claire Rosser, KLIATT

J--Recommended for junior high school students. The contents are of particular interest to young adolescents and their teachers.