Hide and Seeker

Written by Daka Hermon

Narrated by Corey Allen

Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend.

I WENT UP THE HILL,
Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was … different. Nobody knows what happened to him.

THE HILL WAS MUDDY,
At Zee’s welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong.

STOMPED MY TOE
One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life.

AND MADE IT BLOODY,
Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.

SHOULD I WASH IT?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705034835

Reviews for Hide and Seeker

[ShaTonya Wooley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was great for Halloween. This book captured my attention from beginning to end! Excellent read and excellently written.

[salsabrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Booktalk: What are your greatest fears? Spiders? Rats? Snakes? Needles? Death?Whatever your fears the Seeker is looking for you. The Seeker is a terrifying monster that becomes more powerful by feeding on kids’ fears. And it does it by making kids disappear. Justin’s best friend Zee disappeared for a year and when he was found, he came back all wrong. He has scars and scratches all over his arms, his eyes are wild, and he keeps chanting weird rhymes like this: “Out of the darkness, no more light, now it comes to steal your life….Once you’re tagged, then you’ll know. The mark appears, it’s your time to go.”Justin is scared of what’s happened to his friend but now he’s even more scared. Five more of his friends have disappeared, and now…the mark has appeared on his arm and Justin knows he is next.

[Deaniqa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I would say this should be turned into a tv show or movie, but I don’t want them to mess it up!! I loved this so much!!

[acargile-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel is a 2022 Lone Star selection. it's creepy, which all of my students know is a type of book that I don't like. I don't like to avoid reading a book at night. I don't like to have nightmares, which I frequently do! Therefore, this is a novel I avoided at night yet still dreamed about.Justin's good friend Zee went missing a year ago within days of Justin's mom death. Zee's back. Sort of? Upon entering the house to see Zee, Justin finds a messy and abused home. Zee's mother never kept house like this! Lyric has already been by to check on the family, so Justin feels badly that he's waited for the coming home party. As the day unfolds, Justin experiences more and more anxiety that has plagued him since the death of his mother. Within the last year, Justin and his sister have struggled to survive financially and emotionally. Can they even stay in their home? They're behind on most of the bills. Now Justin finds himself excited that Zee is home but stressed because Zee starts babbling strange things that don't make sense. Strangest, most awkward party ever. Despite his anxiety, all of the friends rely on Justin to know what to do when things go south. They decide to play hide 'n' seek. They cheat. Now, consequently, they are playing the Seeker. He/It takes children who cheat on hide 'n' seek and they never return. Which begs the question--how did Zee get back?Justin, Nia, Lyric, Quincy, and Carla all play the game and all get marked, thus knowing they will also disappear. They research and discover what is really happening to kids who cheat while playing the game. They discover they can take whatever they have with them to the other realm, so they plan. They hope if they take enough stuff with them, something will be useful to save them. The marking occurs when a number appears on their arms and shortly thereafter, each one disappears. When they enter the world of the seeker, they can still see the "real" world. They discover a world where pain and disfigurement resides. They find kids who have been in this world for decades, experiencing pain every time the Seeker chooses. The kids swear to save everyone. For those of you who enjoy creepy stories, here you go! I liked Justin--he struggled with so much on his shoulders that caused panic attacks, yet he refuses to be a victim. Everyone relies on him, which also creates stress, but they are right. He figures puzzles out and knows what to do next even though he doubts himself. This novel about friendship and believing in oneself and one another will creep you out but will also make you want to be a better friend.

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Justin and his friends are in attendance at a homecoming party for their friend Zee who mysteriously disappeared a year ago and just as mysteriously recently returned -- scarred physically and emotionally. At the party they play a game of Hide-and-Seek, which is abandoned when Zee starts spouting spooky chants. Only later when some of the party's attendees also start disappearing without a trace do the children realize their mistake. But now the Seeker is out to get them, and can they overcome their fears to defeat this mystery monster?This book had its moments but much of it felt exceedingly dull for me. Many of the beginning chapters were trying to be moody and atmospheric but just relied on generic eeriness that was essentially meaningless. This is a passage from a later chapter but it conveys what I mean: "It's dark, but not completely and the air crackles with this strange vibe that puts me on edge. The lights from within Zee's house cast an eerie glow that only adds to the spookiness." Nothing is actually happening here. And this might be fine as one throwaway line, but the book is littered with paragraphs like this. The book picks up a little when the remaining children start to put together the pieces and figure out slowly the danger that awaits them. There is some real tension as they seek answers to a mystery far too large for young children and then as they await their fates in fear, knowing it is just a matter of time before they are transported off to "Nowhere," a place where all of their nightmares will come true to torment them. That being said, I'm still not sure if I find the concept of Hide-and-Seek being the 'big bad' clever or ridiculous. Once the characters actually arrive in the Seeker's world, it was slightly anti-climatic for me. Each child only has one major fear they have to contend with, although touching another child adds their fear on as well. I suppose since it's a book for children, the fears aren't too horrifying and indeed some are almost comical in a way -- one child's fear is of porcelain dolls coming after her and turning her into one of them; another's fear is that people don't like her (and it is not lost on her peers that she is generally the bully of the group), etc. I suppose anything too truly frightening would be a bit much for the young audience. The end is clever-ish, and I appreciate that the children all work together to figure out a solution, but it too felt sort of anticlimactic when all was said and done. Perhaps I might have liked it a bit better if the conclusion added more of a resolution to Zee's story and a few pages of the children reuniting with their families, particularly for Justin and his sister Victoria.Speaking of, one place where the book really shone was Justin's sweet relationship with his older sister, who is also his caregiver after the death of his mother due to cancer. Justin is dealing with grief and panic attacks, and actually uses the advice of his counselor to help him when faced with the horrific situation with the Seeker. So that was A+ content in my opinion. The friendship between Justin, Lyric, and Nia in particular was heartening, and they were also kind to the other characters who were not always quite as sympathetic. Nia was a delightful character with her grab bag of fun facts and trivia always lightening up the mood a bit. Almost all of the children in the neighborhood are Black, which is a refreshing change of pace from the tokenism usually seen in children's literature. There is a minor character who is Latino. One child uses an inhaler for asthma and, as aforementioned, the main protagonist is dealing with mental health issues after a trauma. The familial structures are also diverse, with single parents, deceased parents, and incarcerated parents. The setting for the real-world parts of the book is primarily urban and described as such.At one point, one of the characters says to another child who has been in the Nowhere for decades, "No matter how much you try to explain what you've gone through, we'll never get it. We can't. It's personal. You've lived it. ... But we're here now. And like I said before, we look out for each other. We fight for each other. And we're gonna fight for you, too." I'm not sure if the author actually meant anything profound by this, but I couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor for race relations in America, especially as it is one of the white characters who utters these lines.There were some minor flaws that bothered me in the writing; one is that a sibling pair are referred to as twins when introduced but then one is "younger" than the other a few paragraphs later; the other is a character who has been in the Nowhere for eighty years using the expression "Game on" as though he was a contemporary to the other children. Young readers probably won't even notice, but these moments felt a little sloppy to me.I could see this book appealing to kids who like horror-type books, most notably for fans of the Goosebumps series. There are definitely some things that I liked about the book so I might recommend it to specific readers. For me, however, it wasn't quite my cup of tea with too many plodding parts for my taste.