Wicked Cruel by Rich Wallace (review)

A small New England town with a ghostly history serves as the setting for this trio of spooky stories. Taking its inspiration from an urban legend, the first tale follows Jordan, a sixth-grader who starts seeing the face of a bullied classmate in online videos—a classmate who supposedly died from a brain hemorrhage after he moved away. The ghostly horses of Brickyard Pond prove themselves to be kind but protective spirits in their tale, while a middle-school dance leads young Owen to form a friendship with a girl from another time in "Rites of Passage." Each story runs about eighty or so pages, making this frightening fare that will appeal to readers who've enjoyed Alvin Schwartz's stories but who'd prefer a bit more meat on the bones of their scares. Wallace knows his pacing and utilizes genre tropes for maximum impact, pairing the sordid past of an aging town with the perils of modern society and technology to create atmospheric chills. The protagonists are aren't deeply drawn, but they're not there to be memorable characters; they're average everyday kids rendered accessible by their dealing with average everyday problems outside of the supernatural, like bullies, sibling conflicts, and confusion with the opposite sex. Pair this with a recommendation of local lore, or use it as a classroom readaloud leading up to Halloween.