Creepers by Keith Gray
Publication: Putnam Juvenile (1997), Hardcover, 139 pages / ISBN 0399231862
Genre: Fiction, Children’s/YA
Rating: 4.5/5
Find @ Amazon
Challenge: Read Your Own Books 2009 (#11)
First sentence: A dog was barking.
I read a review of this on Chicklish and thought it sounded really good, so I got it from BookMooch last December. For some reason I didn’t read it ’til now, but I got a nice surprise once I did. This is a really excellent book!
Summary from Amazon:
Jamie was the best Creeper at school. He could sneak through more yards than anyone else without being caught. He was fast and hardly made any noise. I was surprised when he wanted to Creep with me. I was pretty good, but with Jamie I felt like I could climb over any fence and never get caught.
Then we decided to do Derwent Drive–the longest Creep in the village. You had to move so fast, most of the way along you didn’t have time to think. We were halfway down when it happened. I went Haywire. I just freaked out. I don’t know why. I’d handled big dogs before, but this time I lost it. I can’t believe I did that. I got away, but Jamie was Snared! The police came! What am I going to do now? And what’s going to happen to Jamie?
I was hoping it wouldn’t be too depressing, considering the inside flap says “A brilliant first novel about friendship, courage, and loss” and THAT means something depressing will probably happen. Well, yeah, something depressing happened, but it was balanced out by the happy(ish) ending and the writing was so awesome I didn’t even really mind the depressing thing.
I can’t really talk about the depressing thing without giving away massive spoilers, but I will say that there’s immense character growth (which you should know by now I absolutely love) and some learning-what-life-is-about situations. Not that it’s cheesy, or preachy. It’s quite subtle, actually, yet sharp and to-the-point. Lovely!
Creeping sounds like a really fun thing to do, doesn’t it? And I also love that Creepers have their own vocabulary and rules and such. I love me some secret kid society! Unfortunately I think if I creeped around here I’d be shot, but I can dream.
There’s two very different covers for Creepers (that I’ve found, at least). One’s the hardcover copy, up there, and then there’s this paperback cover:
I actually like it better than the hardcover one. It’s got two people on it, rather than just one, and it shows them in the act of helping one another over a difficult obstacle. The hardback cover just looks like the kid is getting chased by searchlights or something. What do you think? Which cover do you prefer?
Other reviews: Chicklish
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