Reade Scott Whinnem

The Pricker Boy by Reade Scott Whinnem takes place in the forest surrounding a rural town that is mostly a summer home destination. Stucks Cumberland and his friends, are year-rounders. They have to live with the forest even when its at its most sinister.

There's a local legend about a creature with gray skin who is the ghost of a boy left to die in a trap. Children leave offerings to him to throw him off the scent. When Stucks and his friends find one of these shrines, strange things begin to happen.

The Pricker Boy's pacing is similar to Lord of the Flies and the anger expressed by Pete (Stuck's best friend) gives the book a similar savagery. But the pacing of events and the slight of hand used to obfuscate the flashbacks ruined the horror elements for me. Too much of the plot rests on the shoulders of an unreliable narrator — one of my least favorite plot devices.… (altro)

A summer at the lake with the usual crew, more or less. The Pricker Boy is a tale told by a fire to scare each other...but when elements of the story prove to be true, the kids start being truly afraid. Well written and will appeal to kids looking for scary stories.

The title and cover of the book really threw me off, however. The story is not so much about the Pricker Boy, but about the relationships between a group of kids and how they deal with things that happen in their lives.

A great coming of age story.… (altro)

Stucks Cumberland is ready for summer vacation. It is a time when many of his friends return to their vacation homes. However, their vacation doesn't go the way they plan. Something is in the woods. No one goes beyond Widow's Stone for fear of running into the Pricker Boy.

The Pricker Boy was a young boy tricked into believing his fur trapping father was keeping his mother in a cage in the forest and feeding her raw bits of meat. The boy goes looking for his mother. When he doesn't return, the kids start rumors that the thorns have taken him and now he seeks revenge against those who were so cruel to him. He has taken on the form of a being made from and covered with thorns.

This is the story that Ronnie tells around the campfire every year. All of Stuck's friends say that it is not real but when Stucks claims to have seen the Pricker Boy, they all start wondering how much of it is true. Mysteriously the items they have given to the forest and the Pricker Boy to keep him from getting revenge on them have all mysteriously returned. What does it mean?

I wasn't really sure what to make of this book. I couldn't put it down. I still don't know if the Pricker Boy was someone they made up from legend or if he was real. There were other issues going on and the author purposely left the ending the way he did so the reader could decide. This is what made this such a delicious read. I read this in e-book form and have ordered several hard copies for my shelves at school. My students who are fans of horror will love this book.… (altro)