The Ghost of Graylock by Dan Poblocki

Do you believe in ghosts? This book has the theme of paranormal in which there is a ghost involved. I like watching scary movies, but reading a horror books is equally as scary, because you imagine and visualize it yourself. After reading this book you might get scared, and probably not be able to sleep, just kidding.

Dan Poblocki has written several books with horror as the main genre such as; The Stone Child, The Nighmary’s, Monster’s and Mischief, and Haunting and Heists. Dan Poblocki has traveled New Jersey as a bathing suit salesman, played the role of Ichabod Crane in a national tour of The legend of Sleepy Hollow, wrangled  the audience for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and has done research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
   Over the summer Neil Cady and his sister Bree, went to stay with their aunt in the town of Hedston. In Hedston there is a ruined building called Graylock Hall, which there is a rumor that it is haunted. Local kids refer to Graylock Hall as “the asylum in the woods” and they knew to stay away from there. Since the building was closed the secrets contained within the hospital walls have been kept a secret, which has given rise to a frightening legend of madness and murder. How did this legend start? Late one night while the hospital was still running, the building lost electricity in the midst of a summer thunderstorm. The next morning the staff found a body of a girl, her body was drowned, bloated and blue, facedown by the water edge. Several months later a second patient drowned during a power outage during another storm. Some of the Graylock staff became suspicious of a nurse who had been on duty during both incidents, but nothing was said. After a third drowning, the staff wished that they had not kept quiet about the other incidents that had happened.  In the end there were three children missing and three drowned bodies, the people of Hedston refused to believe that these incidents were a mere coincidence.They decided to arrest the nurse that was working during those shifts, the next morning the police discovered the nurse’s body hanging from a bed sheet that she’d tied to the bars of her cell. With the nurse’s death the truth of what really happened would remain a secret, within a few short years the hospital shut down. In the town of Hedston, the story of Nurse Janet lives on, they say that inside the abandoned building, a woman in white still wanders the corridors, her thick-heeled shoes click-clacking against the tile as she follows at an arms’ length behind anyone who dares to intrude.

When she catches you, she stabs you with her needle, and then she drags you outside to the water edge, down to the deep tangles of clutching lake weed. They say she smiles as she holds you under, eventhough her face is blurry as you stare up though the silvery surface, her teeth are glistering white. One of the theories is that Nurse Janet murdered to end the suffering of the insane. For who but those with their own touch of madness would dare to enter the asylum in the woods and pursue its terrible secrets? The ones who will enter the hospital are Neil and his sister Bree; they have decided that they want to go see if the rumors of Graylock halls are real.  They embark in a new journey, with their new friends Wesley and Eric, who they met in Hedston. The insane asylum was meant to heal people, but what will Neil, Bree and their new friend discover in the insane asylum. Will they suffer the same fate as the six victims?  Will they prove that the story was not real or will they find the truth of how those people actually died? To find out what happens you’re going to have read the book.

   My Final thought of this book was that it was detailed in what they author was trying to describe. This has been the first book I read that is at a middle school high school level, the last time I read a horror book was a Goosebumps book which was when I was in grade school. The author also did a good job the in writing, for those who are in middle school to highs school level the language will be understandable. I would recommend this book to be read in class, because it is something that would get the attention of young adults, specially those who would rather read horror books, instead of watching scary movies. What I also liked about this book is that it is detailed enough that you can have a good visualization, in picturing the scenes described. This book would be a good read, but mostly towards independent reading because not all young adults are fans of horror books.