Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark meets Black Mirror. From wicked dolls to demanding crows to zombies that just can’t stand string cheese, this new contemporary collection of original scary short stories by Anica Mrose Rissi is sure to elicit chills, laughs, and screams.
HIDE AND DON’T SEEK
by Anica Mrose Rissi
Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, May 2021
Ages 8 – 12
If you’re feeling brave, turn the page. A game of hide-and-seek goes on far too long… A look-alike doll makes itself right at home… A school talent-show act leaves the audience aghast… And a summer at camp takes a turn for the braaaains… This collection of all-new spooky stories is sure to keep readers up past their bedtimes—laughing, gasping, and looking over their shoulders to see what goes bump in the night. Anica Mrose Rissi’s collection of tales feels both classic and immediate, bone-chillingly scary and somehow incredibly funny at the same time.
Anica Mrose Rissi grew up on an island off the coast of Maine, where she read a lot of books and loved a lot of pets. She now tells and collects stories, makes up songs on her violin, and eats cheese with her friends in Princeton, New Jersey, where she lives with her dog, Arugula. Anica is the author of more than a dozen other books for kids and teens, including the Anna, Banana chapter-book series and Nobody Knows But You.
For as long as sixteen-year-old Adele can remember the village of Oakvale has been surrounding by the dark woods—a forest filled with terrible monsters that light cannot penetrate. Like every person who grows up in Oakvale she has been told to steer clear of the woods unless absolutely necessary. But unlike her neighbors in Oakvale, Adele has a very good reason for going into the woods. Adele is one of a long line of guardians, women who are able to change into wolves and who are tasked with the job of protecting their village while never letting any of the villagers know of their existence. But when following her calling means abandoning the person she loves, the future she imagined for herself, and her values she must decide how far she is willing to go to keep her neighbors safe.
1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilberthas decided, in spite of her family’s indifference, to sit for a portrait—a testament to all the hardships she has overcome, and the glory that her life ought to have had. But there are other important stories to be told on the Guilbert plantation. Like that of Thisbe, the young enslaved woman who must stand silent by her mistress, but who observes everything. Or Byron, the heir to the plantation, whose desires cannot possibly fit with his family duty. Stories that span generations, from the big house to out in the fields, of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and a tangled lineage of descendants and dependents who have never forgotten who they are.
Little Sap can’t wait to grow tall and strong just like her mother and touch the sky. But growing takes time. Luckily for Little Sap, she has her family circle close by and a forest of friends, above and below ground, to help guide her up.
When a plane commissioned by the CDC to transport a newly identifed virus to a testing facility for early vaccine development crashes in a lake community just outside Touristville, Florida, three teens—previously unknown to one another—accidentally ingest tainted water and are told they have 30–60 days to live. Albie is 16 years old and the glue for his crumbling family. Cameron has dreamed of getting out of Touristville, Florida for as long as her parents made her join a vaudeville act at the tender age of fve. But it’s Lacey—sweet, angelic, full–of–shit Lacey—who has the idea to start a support group. It’s also Lacey who fleeces Albie and Cameron out of fifteen bucks per session. So when Cameron and Albie catch Lacey conning a tourist into letting her “borrow” a yacht, they know she has no intention of returning it. And they have every intention of joining her. When three teens on the brink of death form an unlikely alliance, how do they react? For starters, they steal a yacht. And then they have one of the best adventures of their lives: an adventure that results in a true reckoning with who they really are. Will Albie learn to come out of his shell and truly experience life for the first time? Will running away force Cameron to grapple with a repressed secret that’s made her restless for years? And when—in the end— they discover their lives are not over, how will Lacey reckon with the fallout of her lies? This coming–of–age–tale set on a yacht examines the ways three very different teens grapple with the threat of imminent death, and how each emerges with very different ideas of what life ought to be.