Death Watch

October 3, 2011
In this thought-provoking gothic fantasy, Berk makes the jump from interactive/novelty books (William Shakespeare: His Life and Times; The Secret History of Mermaids) to full-fledged novels. What results is a leisurely, digressive, yet genuinely eerie tale, first in the Undertaken trilogy. A year after his mortician father vanishes, 17-year-old Silas Umber and his mother go to stay with his father’s brother, moving into the family mansion in nearby Lichport, a town where ghosts lurk in every corner and the restless dead roam. Quickly estranged from his alcoholic mother and his increasingly unsettling uncle, Silas spends his time exploring Lichport and seeking his father’s fate, even taking up the family role of Undertaker to Lichport’s many spirits, acting as “part therapist, part lawyer, part travel agent and... part deportation officer.” As he grows into the role, he learns many of Lichport’s secrets, including his family’s darkest moments. Berk’s setting is atmospheric and creepy, fleshed out with a wealth of funereal traditions and folklore. The narrative occasionally drags, and some of the characters are broadly drawn, but it remains an intriguing opener. Ages 12–up.

October 15, 2011
Folklorist Berk enters the world of teen lit with mixed results. In a town where ancient customs hold sway and the dead often linger, a young man named Silas searches for his father and learns that he may be destined to help move souls on. Berk knows a great deal about death and its attendant rituals and stories, but he doesn't have the same facility with dialogue or characterization. Occasional incandescent moments--Silas' journey to the dead's gathering places, his efforts to reunite the souls of lost children with those of bereft mothers--fail to shine when crammed into a tale torn in too many directions. Plot necessities drive behavior: Mrs. Bowe, who plays the archetypal role of wise guide to Silas as he learns how to be an undertaker, is often and inexplicably reticent; Silas suddenly grows a backbone when needed but is otherwise intensely passive. Tighter editing could have streamlined the thematic clutter (search for a father, murder mystery, examination of family and responsibility, coming into power and, odd in a YA title, the pain of losing a child) and the tendency toward repetitive writing, but not the almost didactic underlying message (helpfully reiterated in the backmatter) about the importance of remembering the past and the dead. Original ideas bog down in prosy, purpose-driven writing. (reading group guide, author Q&A) (Fantasy. 12 & up)

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February 1, 2012

Gr 10 Up-Silas's father is an Undertaker. When he suddenly disappears, Silas's uncles take him and his alcoholic mother back to the family home in Lichport, where the teen begins to learn of his peculiar heritage. For men of the Umber family, the dead and the dead-but-not-quite-gone hover closely, and it is their responsibility to help the lost and wandering spirits find rest. Lichport is isolated from the rest of the world in more ways than one. Virtually cut off from the mainland, it is visited by very few people, and those that leave tend to come back if not in life, then in death. Consequently, the population consists more of the dead than the living. Berk's writing style and language are reminiscent of the classic gothic works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Shirley Jackson. The plot and pacing have a haunting, dreamlike quality-the type of dream that morphs into nightmares that jolt sleepers awake with a pounding heart and shaking hands. Readers who enjoyed Melissa Marr's Graveminder (William Morrow, 2011) should find this book intriguing.-Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2011
Grades 9-12 It has been more than a year since 17-year-old Silas' mortician father, Amos, disappeared. With money drying out, Silas and his mother move into the house of the foreboding Uncle Charles. It is there that Silas begins poking around the strange town of Lichport and investigating the vanishing of Amos. Soon it is revealed that Amos was an Undertakersomeone with the ability to shepherd souls into the afterlife. And Uncle? Well, Uncle has yuckier plans. First and foremost, this is a work of notable ambition: Berk, a folklorist, weaves hundreds of fascinating, unique bits of mysticism and lore into this doorstop of a book: songs, chants, rituals, rites, and dozens of startling imagesbody parts preserved in honey, shreds of baby blankets caught in tree limbs. But never do these cryptic pieces cohere into a story with propulsion or characters who do more than meander among the various ghostly beings. There is too much reverence here and not enough brio; hopefully the second volume of the Undertaken Trilogy will take these fascinating parts and fire up the plot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)