Module 9: Being Dead

Summary. Seven short stories, each featuring a ghost or a haunting of some sort, about what "being dead" means to those who are dead and those left behind. The stories vary in length from 5 to 65 pages. In one, a teen is haunted by a young girl no one else can see. The surprising reason for the visitations is revealed at the end. Another tale is about a cruel husband whose dead wife invites him to dance ... forever. Some are told in first person, others are simply observed in third-person form. In the final story, the interaction is between a cancer-stricken teen who knows she is going to die and a boy who died in the historic home where she is a docent. The dark stories are more suspenseful than horror-driven, and keep the reader riveted to the page.

Citation. Vande Velde, Vivian. Being Dead. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

My Impressions. I don't often read horror or ghost stories, so I have very little with which to compare Being Dead, but to me it was a fascinating collection of studies into the lives of those affected by death. Vande Velde includes a variety of perspectives, topics, story lengths, and tone (how dark or angry the characters seem). One is told from the perspective of a ghost, the others from the living. One of my favorite stories told of a teen's confusion when she is chosen as the victim of a haunting, why her waterbed houses a ghost, why her clothes and room are being ruined. She finally realizes why SHE was chosen and what she has to do. I would readily recommend this short story collection to students in grades 6 and up.

Library Uses. With a teen group, we could read one of the shortest stories aloud, and compare it to other ghost stories with which the students are familiar. I could also select a very short ghost video and use it for comparison. This program for teens might be particularly apropos at Halloween. Or, with permission, the longer stories could be translated into a Reader's Theater production with the students taking various roles.

Reviews. (School Library Journal) Gr 7 Up-Horror fans will love these seven deliciously creepy tales featuring ghosts, cemeteries, suicides, murders, and other death-related themes. Most of the selections deal with everyday teens in seemingly ordinary situations; readers will settle in, confident that they know what to expect, only to receive a spine-tingling jolt as they hit one of the collection's many gruesome twists and turns. The first story, "Drop by Drop," shows the author's macabre imagination at its best. Sixteen-year-old Brenda is understandably disgruntled when her parents whisk her away from her friends and her life in the city. Worse, their new house in a small town appears to be haunted. In one shivery scene, a disembodied hand touches her through her waterbed mattress, and Brenda spends the night on the couch. Clues turn up: a missing little girl, a foul smell from the woods, a dripping ghost. But just when it seems that Brenda will solve the mystery, the truth comes out-and most readers will be reeling with shock. In another story, a boy killed in Vietnam returns to haunt the father who forced him to enlist-or does he? In "October Chill," a terminally ill girl falls for the ghost of a teen from Colonial times. None of the stories are gory, but they are all quite dark. Recommend this title to teens who don't want happy-ever-after endings.-Miranda Doyle, San Francisco Public Library Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

(Booklist) Gr. 7-10. Seven stories, ranging in length from just a few pages to more than 60, comprise this collection, with a ghost in every one. In "Drop by Drop," sullen teen Brenda loathes the rural house her parents have moved to from Buffalo, but her sulking turns to fear when a wet and bloody child that no one else can see keeps turning up in the new house at the sound of a bicycle bell. Emily has a brain tumor that she knows will kill her, but she finds a queasy tenderness in eighteenth-century ghosts at the historical site where she works in "October Chill." Vietnam casts a ghost in "Shadow Brother" and a young newsie in October 1930 doesn't lose his insouciance even when he's dead. Vande Velde has a sure hand, and these spirits are destined to find their audience. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido, Sept. 2001