With the cadence of a true storyteller, Newbery Honor author Patricia McKissack (The Dark-Thirty) describes a haunting to rival the headless horseman, in time for Halloween and just right for a year-round fright.
It's Friday the 13th in October 1741 New England, and John Leep shuts his shop early in order to toss out his tenant, the widow Mayes. The thought makes him smile. "Smiling didn't come easy to a man like John Leep," writes McKissack, "He had a mean streak in him that ran the length of his long, thin body." Eric Velasquez depicts the landlord in a suspicious-looking posture, engulfed by dusk shadows. En route on his steed, John Leep hears someone in pursuit ("Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop"), yet finds no one behind him each time he turns around. Still, whenever he resumes his ride, he hears "the muffled sound of another horse's hooves."
McKissack's skilled pacing and eerie refrain build the tension as Velasquez deepens the darkness; only John Leep's stricken face and white ruffled collar and cuffs reflect the moonlight. At the door of the widow Mayes, the artist uses golden light to convey the woman's kindness as she hands over her rent. Leep's fear sends the money skittering across the floor. The suspense mounts as he retreats (Clippity-cloppity, clippity-cloppity, clippity-cloppity"), and readers can predict that justice will be done. Velasquez's final terrifying image will linger in readers' minds. This will be a favorite read-aloud all year long. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness