Young Adult Literature: Horror

Titles Discussed

Bonechiller by Graham McNamee

The Diviners by Libba Bray

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Genre Overview

Before the Victorian period in Great Britain and the United States, when children's literature became its own profitable enterprise, children of all ages read literature written for adults. Gothic novels thrilled readers with haunted castles, twisted villains, and innocent heroines. In the United States, Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland; or, the Transformation (1798) gained popularity as one of the earliest examples of the American gothic novel, while in Britain, Ann Radcliffe published numerous gothic tales that were snapped up by the public. The trend for these stories was so enticing that one stormy night in 1816, three vacationing British writers—Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, and Percy Bysshe Shelley—decided to see who could write the most frightening story. The most famous work from this session is Mary Shelley's psychological horror story Frankenstein, first published in 1818.

In the decades that followed, the popularity of horror tales, specifically ghost stories, reached all audiences, and classic authors such as Henry James and Charles Dickens wrote ghost stories that are still read today. These stories led to new directions for scares, and Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stephenson introduced new kinds of monsters (Dracula, Mr. Hyde) with which to scare their audiences.

The horror genre continued to flourish. In the early twentieth century, American writer H. P. Lovecraft introduced a new take on the gothic novel, the cosmic horror story, spawning a sprawling mythos of gods and monsters that led to his being called the “father of modern horror.” Years later, in 1974, a then-unknown writer published his first novel, Carrie, about a teenage girl whose psychic powers manifest in a slaughter of cataclysmic proportions. The novel made Stephen King a household name, and readers of all ages gobbled up his tales of monsters, creepy phenomena, and frightening places.

The horror genre, like other genres, is not limited to just one type of story. Subgenres of horror include gothic tales, mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, paranormal romance, and historical fiction. Horror versions of other genres, such as mystery and science fiction, make use of the same tropes and characterizations as the non-horror versions, but they take them a step further by twisting those familiar aspects with an element of evil. Even horror stories with happy endings often leave readers unsettled, suspicious of the resolution and wondering what will happen next, and questions of morality arise as characters commit or are the victims of horrible acts. As a new generation of writers started producing horror specifically for young adults, many seemed to agree that such works, especially novel-length tales, should end with some sense of optimism.

Though some children's horror series, such as R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series (1992–97) or Jonathan Rand's Michigan Chillers (2000–) and American Chillers (2001–) books, may give the impression that horror writers lack depth, there are many well-written horror books for young adults. Psychological elements add to the characterization and the horror. Monsters become real whether they look like the person next door or something that could only exist in a nightmare. Works such as Graham McNamee's Bonechiller (2008), Rick Yancey's The Monstrumologist (2009), and Ransom Riggs's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011) feature less traditional monsters, while The Diviners (2012), by Libba Bray, introduces a ghostly evil. Whatever the subgenre, modern works of horror continue to appeal to readers because they cross genre boundaries, drawing in those who would otherwise choose romance, mystery, or even humor.

Works

Libba Bray's novel The Diviners opens in 1926 in Manhattan, where a naïve eighteen-year-old girl pulls out a haunted Ouija board to liven up her birthday party. The party soon turns to horror as the guests unwittingly unleash a spirit, and though they quickly put the incident out of their minds, it is too late: “Something moves again in the shadows. A harbinger of much greater evil to come. Naughty John has come home. And he has work to do” (9).

After this frightening setup, the novel primarily follows the life of Evie O'Neill, a young woman from Ohio who has been sent to New York to stay with her uncle after her psychic powers revealed a dark secret of one of her hometown's most popular sons. Once in New York, Evie makes new friends while dealing with her strange uncle's fascination with the occult. Drawn into the murders as an apprentice of sorts to Uncle Will, who has been asked to help by the police, Evie learns that she must rely on her powers to help solve the mystery.

Set in the 1920s, Bray's novel introduces readers to a setting that is reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925). A party atmosphere follows Evie, in many cases highlighting her flaws, but also contrasting drastically with the dark actions of Naughty John and the supernatural fascination of Uncle Will's museum of occult artifacts. The novel's focus shifts between Evie and several other characters who have experienced strange dreams and the onset of individual psychic powers, adding an extra layer of confusion that exacerbates the horror in the story.

In contrast, Bonechiller, by Graham McNamee, is set in a small town in present-day Canada. Danny and his father have been wandering since his mother's death, and Danny has finally settled somewhere long enough to make friends. Ash, Howie, and Pike are military brats, so they understand Danny's nomadic life. After hanging out with his friends one night, Danny is attacked by a creature unlike anything he has ever seen. When Howie is attacked as well, the friends discover that teenagers have been disappearing for years. The disappearances escalate during the coldest winters when the creature apparently comes out of hibernation.

Confused about why the creature did not kill them, Danny and Howie soon start to notice that they are experiencing strange side effects from their attacks. They are both immune to the cold, despite subzero temperatures, and they are sharing dreams that also include the creature. Knowing they must find a way to survive, the friends discover where the creature lives and plan its destruction.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs, jumps in time from present day to one specific day in the past—the day when the home that Miss Peregrine had created as a safe harbor for children with odd powers was bombed during World War II in a German air raid. The story begins with sixteen-year-old Jacob Portman recalling his relationship with his grandfather. As a child, Jacob was fascinated by his grandfather's stories; once he reaches a certain age, he rejects them as fairy tales and forgets them until the day his grandfather dies. As he holds the dying old man in his arms, two things happen: his grandfather passes on a cryptic message, telling him, “Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old man's grave. September third, 1940” (33); and Jacob sees a monster. In the months after his grandfather's death, Jacob believes he is going crazy.

On a search for the truth, Jacob and his father travel to Cairnholm Island in Wales, where Jacob's grandfather stayed during the war. One day, while exploring the ruins of his grandfather's childhood refuge, Jacob finds an old trunk that contains photographs of the same children his grandfather had claimed as friends. While he is looking through the photos, he encounters a group of children. Strangely, though, these are the same children in the photographs, the same children whom his grandfather knew, the same children who were reportedly killed when the house was bombed. As he tries to catch the children, Jacob stumbles into a time loop where the island is still pristine, the children are still alive, and it is always September 3, 1940. The loop is maintained by Miss Peregrine, a bird shape-shifter. The horror comes to light as Jacob discovers the monsters he sees are real and are trying to kill Miss Peregrine and the children.

In The Monstrumologist, author Rick Yancey takes readers back in time to nineteenth-century New England. Twelve-year-old Will Henry is the assistant to Pellinore Warthrop, a scientist who studies monsters. One night a grave robber brings Warthrop a gruesome pair of bodies, one of which belongs to a monster classified by the scientist as a member of the genus Anthropophagi. This horrifying creature has no head, and its favored food source is human flesh.

After being attacked by a group of these monsters when they return to the graveyard, Warthrop and Will go on a search to discover why a group of these creatures would appear on the shores of America. The stories they hear along the way point to Warthrop's father as the culprit, so the two join forces with a monster hunter to get rid of the creatures. However, the monster hunter arrives too late to prevent the slaughter of a local family. Will's graphic description of the massacre makes it one of the most horrifying scenes in the novel. The novel climaxes with a monster hunt in which even the evil of men is revealed. The hunters succeed in demolishing the pack of Anthropophagi, but Will Henry's innocence is lost.

One aspect that all four of these novels has in common is that each character has lost someone close, and that loss plays an important role in the ensuing story. In The Diviners, Evie's older brother died serving the country during World War I. His death comes back to haunt her as she encounters him in her dreams, where he sends her warnings that she struggles to understand. In Bonechiller, Danny is only in Harvest Cove, Canada, because his father has not come to terms with his mother's death from brain cancer two years earlier, and the two have been traveling around the country on a nomadic quest to find a place where they can escape the memories and begin to heal. The death of Jacob's grandfather sets him up for his adventure in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children; the old man's dying message and the mysterious creature that Jacob sees while holding him in his arms send Jacob on a quest to understand his grandfather's life. In The Monstrumologist, Will Henry became Pellinore Warthrop's ward because both of his parents died in a fire that can be indirectly connected to Warthrop's scientific studies.

Outside of the loss of a major loved one, the three novels with male protagonists differ quite a bit from Bray's novel in terms of characterization. Though The Diviners focuses on Evie, she never really matures, and readers may grapple with her flighty and often unkind personality. Further, the novel's shifting point of view can confuse a reader's expectation and understanding of the plot and empathy for the characters, as it is not just Evie who is being terrorized by the horrific murders.

In contrast, the other novels feature strong side characters who support the protagonists and experience the horror along with them. McNamee's Bonechiller pulls Danny's friend Howie right into the nightmare as both boys have been attacked by the ancient creature that lives under the lake. Both Danny and, to a lesser extent, Howie change as the novel progresses and they work their way through their fear of death at the hands of a monster that has been murdering children for decades. Danny learns that life does go on after the death of a loved one and that he must stand up for himself if both he and his father are ever going to heal, while Howie changes from a timid, easily frightened boy into a more mature young man capable of handling challenges without fear. In Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Jacob finds a place where he can belong, even though it means giving up all that he has known. His choice to stay with Miss Peregrine, Emma, and the other children shows a sense of maturity and self-sacrifice for the greater good. Will Henry's growth in The Monstrumologist is a bit more limited due to his age; he is only twelve, while Evie, Danny, and Jacob are all older teenagers. Will's age, however, only contributes to the horror. Despite the limitations on his ability to change, Will does grow in his understanding of his relationship with his mentor, and this interdependence is the one bright note in the novel.

A final contrast between the novels is the nature of the horror element. The Diviners uses the ghost of Naughty John along with Uncle Will's connection to the occult as the main avenues for fear. The tone is more eerie and mysterious than horrifying. The other three novels all feature monstrous creatures: the Bonechiller in Bonechiller, the Hollowgast in Miss Peregrine, and the Anthropophagi in The Monstrumologist. These monsters are frightening for the damage they can do. The Bonechiller's horrifying appearance, ability to inhabit dreams, and decades of child murder combine to make it truly frightening, and the Hollowgast's desire to gain power in order to transform from a physically revolting monster into a human one adds a layer of psychological terror. Yancey's Anthropophagus, though, is the most horrifying of these beasts, due to its horrific physical bearing and its grotesque desire for human flesh.

Conclusions

Young adult horror continues to grow in popularity, as evidenced by the fact that all but one of the above-mentioned novels is the first in a series (Bonechiller being the exception). The adaptation of young adult horror for film and television and the continued popularity of authors such as Mary Downing Hahn and R. L. Stine, who write horror for younger readers, will help generate new audiences. The appeal of young adult novels for adults will also continue to contribute to the genre's health.

The twenty-first century has seen an upsurge in popularity of young adult horror. Many well-written horror novels starring young adult characters cross genre lines, pulling in fans of romance, mystery, and science fiction who crave the excitement, the terror, the emotional connections, and the adventures. As long as young adult authors continue to produce solid literary works that capture attention in original ways, horror fiction will continue to flourish.

Stephen King once argued that people desire horror fiction for several reasons: to challenge themselves to face their fears; to assure themselves that they are normal; and to find a safe outlet for the evil within themselves and the frustrations of everyday life. In essence, his premise is that the vicarious experience of evil acts allows people to exorcise their souls.

Bibliography

Bucher, Katherine T., and KaaVonia Hinton. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation. 3rd ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Fann, Kelly. “Tapping into the Appeal of Cult Fiction.” Reference and User Services Quarterly 51.1 (2011): 15–18. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 June 2015. <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aqh&AN=65556763&site=eds-live>.

Bibliography

Bray, Libba. The Diviners. New York: Little, 2012. Print.

King, Stephen. “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” The Bedford Guide for College Writers: With Reader, Research Manual, and Handbook. Ed. X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Marcia F. Muth. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2011. 559–61. Print.

Lyga, Barry, Robin Wasserman, and Brenna Yovanoff. “Monsters, Murder, and Morality: A Graveside Chat about YA Horror Fiction.” Interview by Daniel Kraus. Booklist 15 May 2014: 62–63. Literary Reference Center. Web. 4 June 2015. <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=96074059&site=eds-live>.

Riggs, Ransom. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Philadelphia: Quirk, 2011. Print.