Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde
Vande Velde, Vivian. 2003. Being Dead. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Children's Books. ISBN-13: 9780152049126.
Seven completely different tales of creepiness, strange happenings, and eerie auras are collected together in one book of mysterious ghost stories. The ghosts appear in the form of a child, a teenage soldier, an old woman, a married couple, and a boy from colonial times. The last story is even told from the ghost's point of view. Some of the accounts are just a few short pages, while others are more developed - up to sixty pages. After devouring the first story, "Drop by Drop," the shorter stories in the middle are over much too quickly - with little time to develop an attachment to the characters. But, if you're looking for great after-dark, candlelight read-alouds - these disturbing stories will certainly send a tingle down even the bravest spines.
"Horror fans will love these seven deliciously creepy tales featuring ghosts, cemeteries, suicides, murders, and other death-related themes. Most of the selections deal with everyday teens in seemingly ordinary situations; readers will settle in, confident that they know what to expect, only to receive a spine-tingling jolt as they hit one of the collection's many gruesome twists and turns. The first story, "Drop by Drop," shows the author's macabre imagination at its best. Sixteen-year-old Brenda is understandably disgruntled when her parents whisk her away from her friends and her life in the city. Worse, their new house in a small town appears to be haunted. In one shivery scene, a disembodied hand touches her through her waterbed mattress, and Brenda spends the night on the couch. Clues turn up: a missing little girl, a foul smell from the woods, a dripping ghost. But just when it seems that Brenda will solve the mystery, the truth comes out--and most readers will be reeling with shock. In another story, a boy killed in Vietnam returns to haunt the father who forced him to enlist--or does he? In "October Chill," a terminally ill girl falls for the ghost of a teen from Colonial times. None of the stories are gory, but they are all quite dark. Recommend this title to teens who don't want happy-ever-after endings."
School Library Journal; September 2001, Vol. 47 Issue 9.
"Long known for stories that leaven supernatural elements with comedy, Vande Velde here forgoes the humor to present a set of ghost stories for readers who enjoy being really scared. All seven short stories concern one of the unquiet dead, back to finish off important business with the living. Some of the ghosts are lighthearted and matter-of-fact about their demise, including the Depression-era paperboy of the title story, killed when a suicidal businessman leaped from a window and landed on him. He sticks around to make sure his mother gets the windfall twenty-dollar tip he received just before he died. "Dancing with Marjorie's Ghost" delivers mild chills when an archetypal tale of a man who reaps grim consequences when, after his mistreated wife dies, he wishes three times: "If only Marjorie could come back for even one night, I swear I'd dance with her to her heart's content." The collection ranges over an intriguing variety of characters, from the brother who went to fight in Vietnam and never came back (or did he?) in "Shadow Brother" to a Boy Scout drawn to cemetary-tending in "For Love of Him" to a historical re-enactor dying of a brain tumor in "October Chill." Vande Velde turns the scream factor highest for "Drop by Drop" and "The Ghost," each of which employs a hair-raising twist at the end. In "Drop by Drop," Brenda has just moved to the country with her family when she starts being haunted by a dripping-wet girl in a bicycle helmet. Clues as to why the dead girl is following Brenda are expertly placed throughout, building tension to the final horrifying revelation. And once you've read the brief but oh-so clever "The Ghost," you'll immediately want to go back and read it again--but not right before bedtime."
The Horn Book; November/December 2001, v. 77 no. 6.
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