Young readers find out what frightens YA author Joel A. Sutherland
A group of young readers had the chance to interact with the author of a story that gave them chills this week at the International Festival of Authors event in Toronto. Nine to 12-year-old members of the Children's Book Bank's monthly book club joined CBC Toronto's Dwight Drummond and young adult author Joel A. Sutherland, to learn more about Sutherland's book, Haunted: The House Next Door. The spooky story was selected as this month's book club title by the children.
The novel follows a pair of siblings as they discover a neighbourhood house filled with ghosts seeking revenge for a tragedy involving the death of a prized horse. Kids were able to ask Sutherland questions, ranging from how he researches his scary stories, to whether he's seen the film Ghostbusters!
"I've always liked Goosebumps when I was little," said book club member, Ammar. "I have more than one hundred of these books in my collection. I also started to get into other horror stories. I just like being scared and I like horror movies."
Haunted: The House Next Door is among roughly 120,000 donated books that the Children's Book Bank has provided to kids in low income neigbhourhoods across Toronto in the last year alone.