Paul Stewart - The Wakening

(1999) 

Genre: Children's/Horror
Synopsis:
"One is dead, but not forgotten,
A name lived on when the body was rotten..."


Sam is scared. Each night, when he goes to sleep, he dreams he is going to the same place - a dark, silent forest, choked with dense undergrowth. And then the voices begin...
First he hears children chanting. Then, in the centre of the forest, a hand claws it's way out of the ground. Someone - or something - has been brought back to life. What's more, it's come with an astonishing message that Sam cannot afford to ignore...


***


Review:
The Wakening is a fantastic introduction to the horror genre for children aged 8-11. It's arguably even quite scary for that age group (with the only review on Amazon being from a parent whose 11 year old had nightmares after it.) It's a fairly quick and easy read - impossible to put down, and while short at under 200 pages it's story is quite dense and well constructed. (Okay, so the ending is a liiiiiittle OTT, but hey, it's a kid's book!) Be it's reader 10 or 20, it's a gripping and satisfying book.

The novel focuses on Sam, a young boy whose family are struggling to get by, who is bullied at school, and who has had to grow up a little too fast. He has a recurring nightmare he can't quite recall upon waking, only leaving him with the metallic taste of something rotten. Over time, bits and pieces begin to come back to him, words, images of a circle burnt in the wood, and children running screaming from some thing...
The creature which slowly comes back to life is trying to communicate a message to Sam - but what? And can it be trusted? Speaking only in riddles and rhyme, appearing in different forms and eventually materialising outside of nightmares, on radios and tvs, the creature is actually quite charismatic. Sam teams up with Jordy, the new girl at school whose grandmother is an expert in old children's games, and the legends of boogeymen that spawn them. Scary or not, the reader can't help but want to learn as much as Sam what this particular creature wants to comunicate to the world, who he really was, and what happened to him to create his legend.

It features a thoroughly explained and arguably realistic backstory dating back over a century, and explores the origins of a local, almost forgotten boogeyman. Being a children's book, the themes aren't exactly subtle but they're also not preachy - dealing with things like 'appearances can be deceptive,' and to an extent the idea of being poor and the divides money can create in society. This second one isn't touched upon as directly, but interlinks with the first to layer the story. All in all, I enjoyed re-reading this at 21 as much as I did the first time I read it when I was 11 - I'd recommend it to any young teen and even readers up to my own age with an interest in children's stories.

Rating: 5/5