White Crow

by Marcus Sedgwick

Overview

Some secrets are better left buried; some secrets are so frightening they might make angels weep and the devil crow. A scary novel by a three-time Printz Award honoree.

Thought provoking as well as intensely scary, Marcus Sedgwick's White Crow unfolds in three voices.

Rebecca has come to a small seaside village to spend the summer.
Ferelith offers to show Rebecca the secrets of the town . . . but at a price.
Finally, there's a priest whose descent into darkness illuminates the girls' frightening story.

White Crow is as beautifully written as it is horrifically gripping.

This title has Common Core connections.

Praise for White Crow:

“Readers in search of an atmospheric horror/thriller with a high body count and a multilayered mystery—not to mention a good scare—will find plenty to like here.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“Showing his customary skill with a gothic setting and morally troubled characters, Sedgwick keeps readers guessing to the very end.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“This book is one thing very few YA novels are: genuinely scary.” —Booklist

Novels by Marcus Sedgwick:
Saint Death: A propulsive, compelling, and unsparing novel set in the grimly violent world of the human and drug trade on the US-Mexican border.
Blood Red Snow White: A gripping, romantic adventure novel based on the true story of Arthur Ransome's experiences with love and betrayal in war-torn Russia.
The Ghosts of Heaven: A Printz Honor Book! Timeless, beautiful, and haunting, spirals connect four episodes, from prehistory through the far future.
She Is Not Invisible: When her father goes missing, a blind girl talented in identifying patterns and her brother are thrust into a mystery.
Midwinterblood: A Printz Medal Winner! Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined.
White Crow: A scary, thought provoking novel about secrets that are better left buried.
Revolver: A Printz Honor Book! A taut frontier survivor story, set at the time of the Alaska gold rush.

Graphic novel by Marcus Sedgwick, art by Thomas Taylor:
Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter: A rip-roaring romp full of hairy horrors, villainous villains, and introducing the world’s toughest monster hunter—Scarlett Hart!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250010292
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	09/18/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)
Lexile:	810L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

MARCUS SEDGWICK is most recently the author of Revolver, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal in the UK and received four starred reviews in the US. The author of eleven widely admired previous novels, he lives in Sussex, England.

Read an Excerpt

REBECCA

 

She could have been anyone.

She could have been any girl who arrived in Winterfold that summer.

That sounds strange, doesn’t it?

It sounds strange to my ears, anyway. Summer in Winterfold. How can there ever be any other season here but winter, with a name like that? But whatever the time of year, Winterfold has a cold embrace and, like the snows of winter, it does not let you go easily.

Once upon a time there was a whole town here, not just a handful of houses. A town with twelve churches and thousands of people, dozens of streets, and a busy harbor.

And then the sea ate it.

Storm by storm, year by year, the cliffs collapsed into the advancing sea, taking the town with it, house by house and street by street, until all that was left was a triangle of three streets, a dozen houses, an inn, a church. Well, most of it …

And then, that summer, she arrived. And actually I’m lying.

She couldn’t have been anyone, because the moment I saw her beautiful face I knew I loved her, and I knew she would love me, too.

I knew.

 

Text copyright © 2011 by Marcus Sedgwick

Editorial Reviews

Readers in search of an atmospheric horror/thriller with a high body count and a multilayered mystery—not to mention a good scare—will find plenty to like here.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“* Showing his customary skill with a gothic setting and morally troubled characters, Sedgwick keeps readers guessing to the very end.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“This book is one thing very few YA novels are: genuinely scary.” —Booklist

From the Publisher

Sedgwick (Revolver) addresses themes of death and what may (or may not) await in the afterlife in this chilling story, told in three voices and in two parallel stories set 200 years apart. In contemporary England, teenage Rebecca reluctantly moves to the coastal village of Winterfold, trading her life back in Greenwich for a lonely town where she knows no one and that every year loses more of itself to the inexorable pull of the sea. Soon, though, Rebecca is discovered by Ferelith, "the strangest-looking girl she's ever seen," who opens a dangerous new world to Rebecca, as Ferelith draws her into Winterfold's dark secrets and legends. The mystery that is Ferelith—a calculated and intelligent girl who left school at age 14, lives in a commune, and doesn't seem entirely human—will pull readers through the book, as will a twin mystery that unspools through the increasingly frenzied journal entries of a local priest in 1798, himself in the thrall of a mysterious stranger. Showing his customary skill with a gothic setting and morally troubled characters, Sedgwick keeps readers guessing to the very end. Ages 12–up. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up—Three lives intersect in this disquieting but skillfully written tale of the human desire to know what awaits us after death. Beautiful and bitter Rebecca has come to the crumbling seaside village of Winterfold with her police-officer father to escape the consequences of a deadly choice he made. She meets Ferelith, a peculiar local girl who prefers "things that are frightening," and who convinces Rebecca to join her in rebellious and perilous activities. Ferelith shares a troubling story of dark doings in the history of Winterfold, which leads to the third part of this tale, which is told through excerpts from the diary of a priest, written in 1798, about a devilish scientific experiment. The three characters around whom the narrative revolves are well realized and realistically flawed, and the story is hugely compelling. The plot moves forward with Sedgwick dangling juicy details in front of readers, revealing just enough information to keep them guessing, never allowing everything to be exposed at once. As all the puzzle pieces fall into place, the peril for the girls rises to a terrifying crescendo, and teens will have no choice but to continue until the last page is turned.—Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO

School Library Journal

Two girls are brought together more from ennui than anything else in this riveting tale that brings the murderous history of a disintegrating coastal town into the present.

Rebecca moves to Winterfold with her disgraced father, a policeman accused—but not convicted—of failure to do his duty, which resulted in a death. Her boyfriend quickly moves on, and, left to her own resources, she discovers Ferelith, a girl close in age, but miles away in capacity for dangerous stunts. Neither girl likes the other much, but there's little else to distract them. Judiciously interspersed are extracts from the 1798 diary of a parson who has met a French newcomer and discovers that they are both fascinated to know what science can tell them of the afterlife. As the grisly experiments of the past are gradually revealed, so dothe girls embark on increasingly dangerous games of daring, uneasily testing their trust and knowledge of each other.While at any moment they could walk away from the nightmare that only readers know is unfolding, these casual choices nonetheless lead them onward. The sea is eroding the coast, and the half-demolished buildings perched on cliff tops add a physical component to the unease. Masterfully plotted to keep the suspense ratcheting ever higher.

Wickedly macabre and absolutely terrifying.(Horror.14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews