Draw the Dark

Seventeen-year-old Christian is a loner at school—which is what tends to happen when you live in a small town with a hidden history, your parents have disappeared, you hear voices in your head from "the sideways place," and you can draw people to death. Sometimes Christian's drawings are taken over by the thoughts of those around him, and when he draws their deepest fears, they die. But now something new is happening: Christian is falling into the life of an eight-year-old boy who lived during the 1940s when Winter, Wis., was home to German WWII prisoners who performed labor in town. The boy witnessed an atrocious crime, and Christian gets caught up in the mystery he uncovers. Though the story is at times hard to follow, as Christian moves in and out of his life and tries to understand his connection to the mysterious "sideways place" that plays a pivotal role in the story's climax, Bick builds the gripping supernatural/historical mystery to a satisfying conclusion that demonstrates the evils of the present can be just as terrifying as those of the past. Ages 12–18. (Oct.)