Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon
The Hook:
Zee disappeared a year ago. Nobody knows what happened to him. He returned just as mysteriously. But something is not right. Justin, Lyric, Nia, and some other kids arrive at Zee’s house for his welcome home party but Zee doesn’t want to see his best friends. He seems angry even crazy—mumbling strange rhymes about a Seeker that will take them all. He is also violent tearing at the walls, kicking and screaming. So the friends wait outside, while Zee’s mom tries to calm him down.
While they wait outside for Zee to decide if he even will come and see them, they play a game of hide and seek. THAT was the wrong thing to play. One by one the friends disappear. It doesn’t take long to realize that Zee’s strange behavior is connected to the disappearances.
Justin, Nia, and Lyric set out on a trail of clues and possible suspects hoping to find the missing kids. Slowly even they are transported to the realm of Nowhere, a parallel universe in which the Seeker keeps children hostage, feeding off their fears. Will they ever get home? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
This book is in our library. It is also in Sora and Axis 360 as an ebook as well as an audio book. It is 8 AR points.
My Thoughts (Careful! There May Be Spoilers):
This was a really fabulous creepy book. The characters read like kids we might know in our own neighborhood. They are genuinely confused and dismayed to find their one-time buddy, Zee, so different and so not right in the head. It is all explained as other kids begin to disappear and then they themselves enter into the Nowhere.
The Nowhere is terrifying. All your nightmares and phobias come to life and the Seeker is feeding off your fear. The kids realize some of the kids they meet in the Nowhere have been there for YEARS—from 1 year up to 40 years—and they cannot imagine being stuck here themselves for that long. They must conquer their fear and defeat the Seeker to get out.
It is a fairly satisfying ending—they get out—and they are able to get all the other kids that have been taken out too. But the few that were there for 40 years return as 50-year-olds and that is a sad thinking how much time they missed and how much their parents missed them too.
For a great, creepy read to keep you up at night, I give this 4.4 stars.
Recommendations:
I recommend this for kids who really like scary stories. One of our teachers read it and she said it genuinely creeped her out so it’s not for the faint of heart—6th-8th graders. For extra creepiness, listen to the audio book.
