Skeleton Creek: The Raven

Carman, Patrick. (2011). Skeleton Creek: The raven. New York: Scholastic. The curious and persistent duo, Ryan McCray and Sarah Fincher, are at it again, trying to solve a mystery that might lead them to places they shouldn't be going. This title picks up where Book Three left off with Sarah finishing up her summer film workshop in California and heading back east where her family lives. Ryan, of course, is still in Oregon where he encounters an odd hooded man chopping a tree with a huge axe while he is fishing with his father. As was the case in the earlier book, there are clues that he shares with Sarah that have her essentially taking a haunted house tour across America, this time through a different portion of the country. She heads to Cheyenne, Wyoming; the Spooksville, Triangle where Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma meet; Savannah, Georgia; and then to Baltimore, Maryland, all the while trying to figure out what the message and clues mean and who has left them. When the clues and the artifacts finally come together, the ending is satisfying since there have been literary hints left all along the way. Enterprising readers will enjoy returning to the book and the passwords again and again to spot the clues. As always, it's great fun to shift from the book to the related website eight different times in order to view the video clips posted online and then back to the book again.

This series is sure to awaken a love for reading in middle graders because of the spooky video clips and fast-paced journal jottings.

Favorite Lines:
"Storms in the mountains often pass through quickly on their way to somewhere else, as if they're late for a poker game and they've only stopped by long enough to put out your fire" (p. 16).

"I'm starting to wonder if I have trust issues" (p. 216).