MMGM- It's Watching and I Want Freedom Now

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Unleashing Readers

Currie, Lindsay. It's Watching 
February 4, 2025 by Delacorte Press
E ARC Provided by Netgalley

Josie and her best friends Jackson and Allison plan to spend their Halloween night in the very haunted Bachelor's Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, Illinois, but not for the reasons you might think. They don't plan on desecrating tombstones while drinking beer; they want to try to see if they can photograph the fabled Lady in White and use their experience to write a news article for the Summit Hill Junior High newspaper. The three have secured coveted spots on the newspaper and have their own column, "The Magnifying Glass". They are very resourceful, planning their trip for a weekend when Josie's parents are out of town helping her grandmother move into assisted living. They think that she is with Allison, who uses her parents' Uber account to get them out to the cemetery. While there, creepy things happen, and on their way out, they are chased by a police patrolman. That's not the only thing that has found them; they each get a text saying "I'm watching" that is accompanied by a picture of the fabled Phantom Farmhouse as well as an eventual countdown. They have three days to figure out whatever this spirit wants. When they get back to Josie's house, things get creepy. The house alarm goes off for no reason, there's dirt on the floor where there shouldn't be, and the furnace goes off. The next morning, the computer is typing out "19191919" for 100 pages even though the electricity is out, and the Halloween decorations are changing in a sinister way. Ever resourceful, the kids take the clues they have gathered and spend their hard earned money to visit a reputable ghost hunter, Janessa. Janessa thinks that spirits have chosen the three friends to help them, and that she wouldn't be much use, but does give them her emergency contact information and drives them home. All three kids are also in contact with their parents, although they are not telling them the truth! Taking the information Janessa has given them, the three visit the local historical society and talk to Susan, who enlightens them on some of the people who lived near the cemetery. They also discuss where the phantom farmhouse might have been, while all the time the dolls in the museum are menacing them from their showcases! They think that a woman named Hulda Fulton wants her headstone back, so they create one and Uber back to the cemetery. They think for a while this might work, but more frightening things happen and they regroup at Josie's. Jackson has heard a creepy song, and they've seen "help her" scratched on the ground. They try researching various people in the cemetery, but can't quite figure out what's going on until Janessa returns with more information. By this time, they've been cold and wet, the house is growing algae on the ceiling, and they've been brewing coffee that they have to chew. With the hours passing quickly, they figure out another connection and return to the cemetery with yet another tombstone. Will it be enough to put the spirits to rest? 

Strengths: This is Currie's seventh book since 2017's The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street, and each book has gotten progressively eerier! I loved that the three chose the Hallowwen weekend to do their homework, and weren't really interested in the ghosts so much as the story! Their advanced subterfuge in getting three days alone without killing any parents at all was admirable.  As always, Currie weaves a lot of history into her story, and makes the past seem both alive and sympathetic. There are funny moments (Tweens trying to brew coffee. Yep.), great helpful adults, and some fantastic interludes where the kids (and the readers!) get to decompress, regroup, and hang out at a coffee shop... before the ghosts set fire to it. There are plenty of scary things, great twists, and a REALLY great ending that I don't want to ruin. Let's get say that I have visited enough old cemeteries that I might just have to pop a $10 bill in the mail to Bachelor's Grove. 

Weaknesses: There was a lot of running back and forth to the cemetery by Uber, which was clever but got a bit tiring. Since this is based on a real place, it couldn't be a creepy cemetery just down the street! Also, as a certified adult, I need to issue this disclaimer: Kids, don't lie to your parents and sneak out on your own! 
What I really think: This is perhaps Currie's best mystery, followed closely by The Girl in White and Scritch Scratch! This had a bit of a Mary Downing Hahn vibe to it that I haven't picked up in her earlier work. Currie, Poblocki, and K.R. Alexander are cementing themselves as the middle grade horror writers for the 2020s! For some reason, Arthur's 1964 Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigator's Series: The Secret of Terror Castle popped into my mind as I was looking for books with a similar vibe. 

Hoose, Phillip and Colvin, Claudette. I Want Freedom Now!
November 12, 2024 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Public library copy

While there are many picture books about Rosa Parks (who worked as a secretary in the NAACP), there is relatively little written about the young woman who protested giving up her seat on a bus months before Parks did. Phillip Hoose, whose middle grade nonfiction book about Colvin, Claudette Colvin, Twice Towards Justice, came out in 2007, has worked closely with Colvin herself to tell her story.

At the beginning of the book, we see Ms. Colvin get on the bus, and through the bus windows, we see scenes of the Montgomery, Alabama neighborhoods she rides through. On the ride, she thinks about all of the injustices that Black people had to deal with in 1955. When a white woman demands her seat, backed by the bus driver, Colvin thinks about the treatment Black people have received, and decides to hold firm and not give up her seat. This leads to her arrest and imprisonment, as well as a trial, which she loses. Later, after Rosa Parks' famous case, Colvin's lawyer Fred Gray wanted to challenge the constitutionality of the bus laws, and asked Colvin, along with three other women with similar cases, to join in Browder vs. Gayle and challenge the laws. They won this case, and segregated bus seating became illegal in Alabama. Six months later, the Supreme Court declared that it was unconstitutional. This ends with a note about Colvin, and Hoose's work and friendship with her.

Hoose does a great job at distilling Colvin's story and presenting it for younger readers in a way that shows personal agency on her part that may encourage young readers to stand up for issues affecting their own lives. He also makes sure to paint a picture of the issues that Colvin and other Black citizens were facing, which is important. Students today may not be aware of how people were treated in the 1950s; the detail about Black people not being able to try on shoes in stores will be surprising to many of them!

Bea Jackson clearly did her research for the illustrations, especially the clothing. The details were spot on, and the illustrations also do a great job of conveying emotions. The vintage feel is perfect, and the colors warm and realistic. Her use of light is especially nice; the cover is very appealing.

All ages can benefit from picture books, and a great way to celebrate Black History Month is to read a picture book a day on lesser know figures in Black History or the Civil Rights Movement. Add Claudette Colvin: I Want Freedom Now! to a shelf that includes Bolden's Going Places: Victor Hugo Green and His Glorious Book, Weatherford's Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Levinson's The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist, Pinkney's Sit-in: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down, Cline-Ransom's Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis, King's My Daddy: Martin Luther King, Jr. , Wallace's Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement, or Hudson's The Day Madear Voted.