Haunters

May 15, 2013
This fast-paced novel incorporates a variety of tropes and modes--time travel and dream walking, adventure and suspense--to produce a rewarding, page-turning read. For about a year--ever since his father died--14-year-old English schoolboy David Utherwise has been dreaming about a boy named Eddie, who has become something of a "dream friend." One night, he has nightmares in which Eddie is trapped in a burning house during the Blitz, and the next day is really tough, to put it mildly. He is bullied in class, a set of total strangers attempts to abduct him, and a different set succeeds in kidnapping him. Scruffy Professor Feldrake explains David's importance to a benign group of time travelers determined to keep Eddie, who is a very real boy living in an earlier time, alive. The story is told in chapters that switch from World War II-era London to a modern-day citadel inside a Swiss mountain, a technique that produces a series of breathtaking cliffhangers and ramps up suspense considerably. A variety of characters, many of them ill-intentioned, add oomph to the propulsive plot but not much depth. This solid adventure with its many teen characters will appeal to a wide audience; the epilogue leaves many threads hanging, giving promise of at least one more outing. Reluctant readers and adventure/suspense junkies will gallop through this volume and haunt the shelves for the sequel. (Adventure. 10-14)

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December 1, 2013

Gr 5-9-For more than a year, David Utherwise's vivid dreams have included Eddie, to the point that David considers him a close friend. It's not until two separate groups are after him that he discovers that Eddie might be something other than a dream figure. Taken from his family and brought to the Unsleep House in Geneva, he encounters mysterious Professor Feldrake, who reveals that David is a dreamwalker, and that what he thought were dreams were travels back in time to the London Blitz. David has been meeting the 14-year-old version of his grandfather, Edmund Utherwise. These supernatural meetings inspire the adult Eddie to develop a practical theory of ghosts and to found the Dreamwalker Project. David finds that a rogue group, the Haunting, thinks nothing of manipulating past events in ways that allow them to profit. Recently, Adam, a star student at Unsleep House, has defected to the Haunting. His knowledge could very well allow the Haunting to capture the childhood Eddie, bringing about the destruction of the Unsleep House, the only thing that stands in the way of the Haunting ruling the world. When Adam disguises himself as David to lure Eddie into a house that is about to be bombed, Eddie narrowly escapes, but that slight change in history means that now he is wandering around London in grave danger. Chapters alternate between current-day Geneva and 1940 London. The race between the Haunters and the Dreamwalkers to locate Eddie will keep readers turning pages, but the final surprise twist and cliff-hanger ending may leave some readers frustrated.-Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

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