Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Haunted Heritage

Haunted Heritage by Michael Norman and Beth Scott is a
compilation of ghost stories and unusual events that have
occurred throughout North America. Divided into chapters by
region, (the Northeast, the Midwest, the South, the West,
and Canada) each section contains stories devoted to the
history and culture of a particular area. There are twelve
stories about ghost sightings on college campuses and
sixteen stories of appearing lights; no one knows where they
came from or their significance. Haunted Heritage is almost
like a textbook of scary, gory, or just plain weird events
that have supposedly occurred in the United States and
Canada. The stories are well researched and provide
insightful views of the supernatural.

Haunted Heritage contains too many ghost stories. The
majority of them are fascinating and intriguing, and some I
even wished I was there. After awhile, however, the
similarities and length of the accounts become barriers to
potentially great stories. The book becomes tedious to read
and some of the stories are boring as they are too factual
and the information takes away from the general theme of the
story. One story I particularly liked was a great tale of
the strange events that occurred on Larabee Street. The
story was frightening and had me turning pages, however,
towards the end, it was devoted to what happened to the
family of the story,including information about the sale of
their house and how much the family lost in value. Haunted
Heritage has such fantastic potential to be a book on every
child and adult nightstand. It contains stories teenagers
will read to friends at sleepovers, trying to scare each
other into nightmares. However, it lost its appeal with too
detailed and informative accounts. Haunted Heritage is worth
the effort, if only it was not deluded with unrelated
information, it would be perfect.
Rating (0 - 10 scale): 6

Many of the stories are frightening and there are some
accounts of gore and killings that may be too disturbing to
young readers.

Reviewer Age:16

Reviewer City, State and Country:
Concord, Massachusetts Unit