Could the road to the afterlife be a two-way street? After diving into Derek's world in books #1 and #2, readers are in for more spooky, sinister adventure in this latest installment.
Derek didn't ask for this.
It's bad enough that his brother's body is hosting a dead soul. Then there's that whole business of the evil dead waging war. And don't even get him started on all the weird voices rattling around inside his head.
But like it or not, the war is on. The Legion is back in full force, and they're heading for the mysterious, long-abandoned Red House. It holds a secret that could change everything.
Derek doesn't know what they're after --- but he knows he has to find it first.
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61 The Haunting of Derek Stone #3: The Red House Pub Month/In-store: June 2009 ISBN-13: 978-0-545-03431-9 ISBN: 0-545-03431-0 Price: $6.50 Strippable EAN: 9-780545-03431-9 Pages: 144 Ctn: 72 Trim Size: 51/4" x 75/8" Binding: Perfect-bound Format: Paperback Ages: 9–12 R.L.: 5 Category: Horror .. Ghost Stories (F) Illustration Type: N/A LC: N/A Translation Rights: Scholastic Inc. Territory: World Could the road to the afterlife be a two-way street? TONY ABBOTT is the author of more than seventy books for young readers, including the popular The Secrets of Droon series, and was the recipient of the 2006 Golden Kite Award. Tony lives with his wife and two daughters in Trumbull, Connecticut. Visit him online at www.tonyabbottbooks.com.
To begin with, I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and lived in a small house on top of a hill. Together, my mother, a school teacher, and my father, a returning World War II paratrooper pursuing his college studies, brought tons of books into our small house on Cliffview Road. I guess you could say that these books were my first introduction to the world of literature. My father was always writing, so the sound of the typewriter was like the background music of my early childhood.
When I was eight, we relocated, by car, to Connecticut where I finished elementary school and high school. I went to college at the University of Connecticut, majoring first in music (too hard), psychology (too many theories), and finally English (yes! lot and lots of books!). I graduated UConn with a bachelors degree in English Literature. After that, I traveled to Europe for quite a while, drank a lot of coffee, and wrote notebooks full of strange poetry. When I returned, I found work in a variety of bookstores and finally a library where I met my wife to be.
It was when I began reading bedtime stories to my children that the spark of writing I had had for so many years finally turned to children's books. After many failures, my first published book, Danger Guys, was written while taking a writing class with renowned children's author, Patricia Reilly Giff. That first book, and the series that it began, became the cornerstone of my writing career and has become something of a cult favorite, by virtue of its being difficult to find. Since then, I've written over seventy-five books for readers ages 6 to 14, including the cult favorit popular fantasy saga, The Secrets of Droon.
Over 8 million of my books have been sold worldwide, and my series and novels combined have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Korean, French, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, and Russian. Danger Guys was named a Children's Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection, and the American Booksellers Association voted The Secrets of Droon among the "Top 10 List of Books to Read while Waiting for the Next Harry Potter." The series was also a Main Selection of the Children's Book-of-the-Month Club, and is on many school and library reading lists.
In 2007, my novel Firegirl won the Golden Kite Award for Fiction presented by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. It is the only award given by children's writers to children's writers, a peer award I remain honored at having received. It was also a selection of the Junior Library Guild.
In the Spring of 2008, my second novel for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers appeared. The Postcard is a comedy/mystery about a boy who finds a clue on an old postcard while cleaning his recently deceased grandmother's Florida house, and who has no choice but to follow the mystery wherever it leads. Among other things, The Postcard is my love song to Florida's Gulf Coast, where my grandparents lived, and to old Florida, its architecture, roadside attractions, and Wild-West origins. It is, not least, my homage to the great hardboiled tradition of Hammett and Chandler, translated to a Florida setting. The Postcard won the 2009 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery.
In 2009, The Haunting of Derek Stone, a series of four books for older readers, appeared from Scholastic Inc. Titles include: City of the Dead, Bayou Dogs, The Red House, and The Ghost Road.
My literary and cultural interests include the films of Preston Sturges, the Road pictures of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and the Marx Brothers, and the writings of Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse, Jules Verne, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, The Arabian Nights, Beowulf, James Thurber, Philip Roth, Ralph Ellison, and William Faulkner. I'm currently a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the Yale Center for British Art, and other esteemed organizations. With my wonderful wife, two delightful and brilliant daughters, and the best dog imaginable, I live and work happily in Connecticut.
This review is from: The Red House (The Haunting of Derek Stone, Book 3) (Mass Market Paperback)
This third book in the 'Haunting of Derek Stone' series is a roller coaster ride. It is fast-paced and the story arc progresses dramatically. Book 2 Bayou Dogs ends with plans for Derek, his brother and Abby Donner to meet in Baton Rouge. Abby leads them to the school library at the Louisiana State University. There they identify the Red House in the picture from Derek's past. Other things from Derek's past keep coming to light also, like a mysterious appearance of his mother. While discovering secrets about his family's long history in Louisiana, and part of his legacy as a Longtemps, he also finds out that his great, great grandfather discovered the rift 150 years earlier and managed to find a way to close it. But the three are now pursued by an army of hundreds that have crossed over the rift. Can they find the way to close it? We will need to read on to find out.
Tony Abbot is most known for his Secrets of Droon series and his bestselling novels, Kringle and Firegirl. He is the author of over 70 books.
The Haunting of Derek Stone:
City of the Dead
Bayou Dogs
The Red House
The Ghost Road
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This review is from: The Red House (The Haunting of Derek Stone, Book 3) (Mass Market Paperback)
Derek Stone has a problem. His brother, Ronny, is decaying. Well, it's not exactly his brother. It's his brother's body, which has been transformed with the soul of another person after Ronny died in a train crash.
To make matters worse, Derek, Ronny, and their friend, Abby, are being chased by an army called The Legion, made up of people just like Ronny, who have died and been brought back to life with the souls of other people. Except unlike Ronny, these people are not good.
Derek has been getting flashes of a poem after he saw a picture of an old red house. Turns out this is the ancestral home of his mother's family, and he needs to get there to unlock something with a key in his possession. Trouble is, it's hard to go anywhere with an army of zombies on your tail.
THE RED HOUSE packs a lot of adventure into a slim book. Even I, as a new reader of the series, understood most of the book and got into it. Fans of this series will be astounded by the secrets and changes revealed in the book, and left wanting for the next installment!
Reviewed by: YoungBibliophile
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