Successors of Mary Downing Hahn: India Hill Brown.
The Forgotten Girl & The Girl in the Lake.
Given my love of middle grade horror old and new, I am VERY into discovering contemporary authors that give me the feel of old school favorites like Betty Ren Wright and Mary Downing Hahn. India Hill Brown is absolutely one who fits the bill—both of her books to date are contemporary ghost stories that are also grounded in strong family and friendship dynamics.
AND BONUS, her books—or, at least, so far!—are also grounded in history: The Forgotten Girl deals with the history of segregated cemeteries, and The Girl in the Lake deals with the history of segregation and swimming.
The Forgotten Girl, by India Hill Brown
I loved this one so much the first time around that I re-read it before I picked up The Girl in the Lake. And it absolutely, positively held up to a second read.
It’s about middle schooler and big sister Iris, who discovers an abandoned cemetery in her small North Carolina town. She and her best friend, Daniel, do some digging—research-wise, not in the ground—and learn about the history of segregated cemeteries, which inspires them to start working at uncovering, restoring, and preserving them. Buuuuut first they’ll need to deal with the ghost they accidentally woke up:
There was a little girl, standing with her back to Iris.
“Hello?” Iris said.
She didn’t answer.
She wore a light dress that didn’t even cover her bare legs, but she kept completely still despite the harsh cold.
What was this girl doing out here? Had she come from one of the neighbors’ houses?
“Hello?” Iris repeated. The girl slowly turned around; her eyes were black holes, swallowing the moonlight. She was smiling, but unmoving.
In addition to—and in concert with—the ghosty stuff, it’s a great story about sibling dynamics. Iris is feeling, more and more, that she wants more independence, but at the same time, she’s having a lot of feelings about her younger sister always being underfoot AND wanting to be a mini-me AND always getting more attention, less responsibility, less criticism. But, as we know from Labyrinth and a million other stories about older siblings resenting younger siblings, when paranormal entities get involved, situations like that can go south, and FAST.
It’s genuinely, truly scary. That’s because of the fantastic imagery and the danger that the ghost represents, but ALSO because of how her anger and loneliness and desire to be seen all reflect Iris’ own feelings.
Beyond the story on the surface, The Forgotten Girl is also a fantastic way of introducing the idea that every grave represents a whole lifetime of stories that will be forgotten if we don’t do the work of saving them before they’re lost. It’s a reminder that the history we’re taught in school is only a teeny-tiny fraction of a percent of what has actually come before us, AND that the history we’re taught is generally what is deemed important by the dominant culture, which erases the same groups of people—not white, not straight, not male—again and again and again.
The Girl in the Lake, by India Hill Brown
This one is due to be published at the beginning of January, but happily, I had access to an advance copy.
It’s about twelve year old Celeste, who’s about to spend a week with her brother, their cousins, and their grandparents at their family lake house. Celeste is both looking forward to it and dreading it, because she knows that her grandfather is going to push her to learn how to swim—something that she’s been worried about since a bad experience with a swimming instructor at her local pool.
She’s ashamed and embarrassed of her fear because her younger brother, Owen, took to swimming really easily—but he has his own stuff that he’ll be contending with over the course of the week. Ditto both of their cousins.
And that’s all before they realize that the lake house is haunted.
Like The Forgotten Girl, The Girl in the Lake is a ghost story that incorporates American history, showing how the past affects the present day, in both micro and macro terms—on a family level and on a broader cultural level. In this case, Brown deals with the history of racially segregated swimming pools, and how that history continues to affect continuing assumptions about—and continued policing of—who belongs in what spaces. She does it in the context of a family tragedy, and shows how one death can have repercussions through multiple generations.
She shows, too, how, in seemingly small interactions—even, in some cases, seemingly somewhat innocuous ones—we can affect one another in extremely profound ways. If Celeste’s original swim instructor had exhibited a modicum of patience, if he’d been willing to treat her as an individual instead of just an interaction to get through, a lot of anxiety and fear could have been avoided:
“Just come on,” he said. I could tell he was getting annoyed. “You can do it. It’s not that hard.”
I didn’t have the guts to tell him that it was that hard for me. I wanted to tell him that my name wasn’t that hard to pronounce, either, but he kept messing that up, and I’d never jumped in a body of water before. I wanted to tell him that since he seemed so annoyed with me, I didn’t trust him to catch me if I messed up. So I didn’t say anything.
I don’t think it’s humanly possible to behave with perfect empathy and grace in every single interaction we have, but I do think it’s worth remembering that there’s a whole universe—including anxiety, fear, worry—behind every face. We all do a lot of hiding.
That’s enough of my philosophizing. LET’S GET TO THE GHOST STUFF, YES?
The Girl in the Lake has some scares, but it’s not scary in the same way that The Forgotten Girl is—and I’d argue that due to plotting and tone, that that’s entirely deliberate. It’s first and foremost a story about family; about reconsidering assumptions and interactions; about growing into one’s own; about building trust between people; about developing confidence in our own selves. In The Forgotten Girl, some of the actions of the ghost are malicious; in The Girl in the Lake, they’re more childish and misguided. I’m so curious to see what Brown does next—if she goes for light scares or heavy scares or for something completely different. Whatever she decides to do, I’m here for it.
Who’s your favorite go-to for new middle grade horror? I’m always, always, always looking for more.
Talk to you soon,
Leila