Monsters in the Mist

Juliana Brandt's Monsters in the Mist is a creepy island story for 9 year olds about a boy who's sure something is wrong and keeps being told to be rational.

What happens

Glennon McCue is thirteen. It's 1989, his dad is teaching in Belgium for the term, and his mum has taken him and his older sister Lee to stay with Uncle Job, a lighthouse keeper on a tiny island in Lake Superior. They're four days away from catching the last ferry home.

Then a storm drives a freighter onto the rocks below the cliff.

Three survivors climb up a rope out of the fog. One of them, a sailor called Everett, has eyes that won't stay the same colour. Every time he speaks it sounds like a threat. And the three lighthouse keepers keep arguing about where everyone should sleep, as if there's a second conversation going on that Glennon can't hear.

It's properly spooky. Faces form in the fog. A rat with green eyes sits on the windowsill. Glennon sleepwalks into his mum's room and sees something he decides must have been a dream. His sister Lee is sure it's ghouls, or possibly zombies (she's watched a LOT of films), while Glennon repeats his dad's advice in his head and tries very hard not to be scared.

Glennon is a lovely boy to spend time with. He feels everything, he worries about everyone, and he's the one who tucks earplugs into his sister's ears when the foghorn sets off her panic.

Before you hand this one over, it's worth a look yourself. Twenty sailors die in the wreck, and Glennon watches one of them swept off the deck. There's a quieter unease running underneath too. Lee hides in cupboards when she's frightened, Glennon feels he has to protect his mum, and it's hinted that things at home with Dad haven't been easy. A child who is anxious, or who has had a hard time at home, may find it close to the bone.

For a confident reader who loves a shiver, though, it's brilliant. The fog, the foghorn and the lighthouse keepers who won't explain themselves make a wonderfully eerie setting, and you'll want to know what Everett is.

What to read next

If they're after another misty island with a family secret at its heart, try Michelle Harrison's A Pinch of Magic. Betty Widdershins lives in an old inn on the marsh isle of Crowstone, and on her thirteenth birthday she finds out about the family curse.