Sandy Deutscher Green’s Childhood Fears: The Boy with Green Hair and More
I remember coming home from school in the 1960’s and watching the four o’clock daily movie on television. It was my introduction to such horror classics as The Boy with Green Hair, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and, of course, The Haunting of Hill House. With our black and white TV, I had to take the word of the television station that Peter really had green hair. And I believed it. It was scary, but I believed it!
I believed poor Scott did all he could to survive an attack from a (giant to him) house cat. And that Eleanor saw eyes peeping through the garish wallpaper while her hand was nearly crushed holding hands with Theodora for comfort, except Theodora was asleep.
I could never sleep with an arm or leg dangling over the edge of the bed. And going out in the dark, or even bumbling around the dark house, was to be avoided, even now. There’s something to be said, although I don’t know who I’d say it to, when the cats jerk their heads toward the door in the silence of the evening, when I’m the only person home.
Just as I understand the solar eclipse today on April 8, 2024, as I’m sitting outside simultaneously writing this and tracking the eclipse, strange and unsettling events have always happened. An eclipse used to be a frightening event. A dragon was eating the sun, or it was an omen of doom. As we cheer, or at least breathe a sigh of relief, as the sun comes back into view after the eclipse, that’s how we react at the end of a good middle grade horror story.
Explanations are the stuff of horror novels and films. Digging deeply into the Why helps us understand the Why Not? And if taking a few readers along for the ride helps them, and me, understand the unbelievable, I’d say that it was a great trip!
Summary of Ghost Writers: The Haunting of Lake Lucy a horror-in-verse for middle grade readers
A lakeside summer vacation is just what 13-year-old Jayce needs… except he’s convinced the ghost from his nightmares lives in the creepy house next door. But when he decides to team up with his twin sister to write a letter to the phantom neighbor, he’s shocked when THE GHOST WRITES HIM BACK. Now Jayce must uncover the dark secret of a cursed lake—or remain haunted forever.
Sandy Deutscher Green
Sandy Deutscher Green is a former ballet dancer who writes with musicality and rhythm as she turns to scaring the daylights out of children with her horror-in-verse books. She is the author of the middle grade horror-in-verse Ghost Writers: The Haunting of Lake Lucy, available May 14, 2024.
WEBSITE LINKS
Amazon link:
http://tinyurl.com/3pb9b7wh
Publisher – Monarch Educational Services
https://monarcheducationalservices.com
B&N:
http://tinyurl.com/mryww6nt
Goodreads: