Nightmare King

by Daka Hermon

Overview

Author of Hide and Seeker, Daka Hermon, brings us a new evil lurking in our childhood games.

Things haven’t been the same since Shane’s accident. One minute he was a normal kid playing a game of tag with his friends, and the next he’s the boy who came back from the dead. Now, every time Shane falls asleep, he’s pulled into a dark world where the evil Nightmare King reigns. The King is collecting children and keeping them as treasure.Despite the threat of capture by the Nightmare King, he can’t stay awake forever. Shane will have to take matters into his own hands . . . if he gives himself over to his nightmares, can he hold on to the good in himself long enough to bring down the King?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781338775839
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/05/2023
Sold by:	Scholastic, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	312,161
File size:	8 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Daka Hermon was born in Tennessee and spent her childhood huddled under a blanket with a flashlight reading and writing fairy-tale and fantasy stories. She works in the entertainment industry, and is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She loves peach sweet tea, chocolate, cupcakes, and collecting superhero toys. Daka lives in California and can be found online at dakahermon.com and on Twitter @dakadh.

Editorial Reviews

2023-07-13
A boy just wants his old life back, but the Nightmare King has different plans.

Twelve-year-old Shane has finally recovered from a game of tag that went tragically wrong, landing him in the hospital with gaps in his memory and scars on his torso. He thinks things are looking up when he is finally cleared to play on the basketball team after having to take a year off. Unable to perform at his previously high skill level, however, Shane begins to doubt himself. To top it off, he starts having terrible nightmares, even worse than the ones he had after his accident. When Shane starts falling asleep at random times, coming to with fresh bruises and objects pulled from his nightmares, his twin sister, Sadie, and best friend, Doc, begin to worry about him. In this novel featuring a central cast that is cued Black, Hermon creates a middle-grade horror world that involves a Nightmare King who collects talented children. Unfortunately, despite the quality of the prose, the story takes a long time to build up to the parts that will get readers spooked. A lot of time is spent dragging out the details of Shane’s accident and exploring his self-doubt; readers won’t experience any significant creep factor until later in the book and might lose patience hoping for the scary parts to play out.

Well-written, but there’s a long wait for the scares. (Horror. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews