Picture the Dead

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Picture the Dead (eBook) Pub. Date: 2/1/2012 Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated

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Picture the Dead (eBook) Pub. Date: 5/1/2010 Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated
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Hardcover

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Picture the Dead Pub. Date: 5/1/2010 Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated

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Overview

"A perfectly haunting combination."
—Jon Scieszka, bestselling author and Caldecott Honor winner

"I loved Picture the Dead. Eerie, romantic, moody, and immersive. A beautifully illustrated gothic delight!"
—Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cat

"A tour de force, a remarkable feat of visual and verbal storytelling, as playful as it is serious, as haunting as it is delightful."
—Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Jennie feels the tingling presence of something unnatural in the house now that Will is dead.

Her heart aches without him, and she still doesn't know how he really died. It seems that everywhere she turns, someone is hiding yet another clue. As Jennie seeks the truth, she finds herself drawn ever deeper into a series of tricks and lies, secrets and betrayals, and begins to wonder if she had every really known Will at all.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In this smartly restrained ghost story, orphan Jennie has already lost her twin brother to the Civil War, but when her brooding cousin, Quinn, returns wounded to their Massachusetts home, she learns that Will--Quinn's brother and Jennie's fiancé--is also dead. Displaced and treated like a servant by her miserly aunt, Jennie succumbs to Quinn's romantic advances, in spite of a ghostly recurring sensation that she is being choked, and her sense that something's amiss with Will's death. Integrated letters, scrawled notes, and Brown's (How to Be) digital portraits (based on daguerreotypes) provide foreshadowing, while contributing to the unease that gnaws at Jennie's stark yet beautiful narration. Through her association with a spirit photographer, Mr. Geist, Jennie presumes that Will is jealous over her engagement to Quinn, but Griffin's (the Vampire Island series) house of mirrors unveils secrets more sinister. Despite the powerful conclusion, it's moments of quiet perception that should most resonate, as when Mr. Geist distinguishes between memory and haunting: "For if memory is the wave that buoys our grief, haunting is the undertow that drags us to its troubled source." Ages 12–up. (May)

More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews

From The Critics

"Evocative black-and-white drawings... Griffin's vivid writing will draw readers into Jennie's first-person narrative of love, doubt, and mystery... The tale goes beyond [Jennie's] particular ghosts and shows how broadly the country was haunted: survivors by the loss of loved ones and soldiers by wretched memories. A Civil War ghost story with gothic overtones."
- Booklist

— Carolyn Phelan

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781402237126
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated
Publication date: 5/1/2010
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 331,419
Age range: 11 - 15 Years
Lexile: 800L (what's this?)
Product dimensions: 6.20 (w) x 8.10 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

ADELE GRIFFIN is the critically acclaimed author of numerous young adult novels, including My Almost Epic Summer, The Other Shepards, and National Book Award Finalists Where I Want to Be and Sons of Liberty. She lives in New York City.

LISA BROWN is the bestselling author and illustrator of How to Be and Sometimes and the very popular Baby Be of Use board book series from McSweeney's. She also publishes a bimonthly illustrated book review in the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in California with her husband, author Lemony Snicket, and their son.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4

( 8 )

Rating Distribution

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Anonymous

Posted October 28, 2011

Thrushpelt

Come on blackfire *hurds her to tge next book cains apples*

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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beckymmoe

Posted April 25, 2011

more from this reviewer

Historical fiction meets creepy ghost/suspense story

Picture the Dead was an interesting book. It was a quick read, because it actually had pictures--the second author credited on the cover is actually the illustrator--pictures which gave clues to things that were about to happen or clarified things that already had. I enjoyed the story, but the pacing seemed a bit off--for a lot of it, it felt like not much was happening and then once it did, bam! it all happened at once. Still, though, it was a fun way to spend a few hours.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted January 22, 2012

???????

WHAT IS THIS??? WHAT IS BLACKFIRE????? IS THIS A BOOK OR WHAT??????
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Anonymous

Posted December 13, 2011

I rok

Givin it 1 star cuz i never read it but it looks very interesting

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted October 28, 2011

Blackfire

Okey dokey. See ya there!

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Mother-Daughter-Book-Club

Posted June 10, 2010

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Courtesy of Mother Daughter Book Club.com

Jennie Lovell has suffered much tragedy in her 16 years. Her parents died, her twin brother was killed fighting in the Civil War, and now her fiancé/cousin has also fallen on the battlefield. The aunt and uncle who have taken her in-never overly warm towards her- have fallen on hard times. She doesn't know what she'll do if they put her out.

Jennie's cousin Quinn seems to be harboring a secret about his brother's death, and his own wounding in combat. When the family turns to a spiritualist photographer to help calm their grief, Jennie begins to feel her fiancé is trying to send a message through the prints made. Deciphering the meaning of what she sees may just save her life.

Picture the Dead, written by Adele Griffin and illustrated by Lisa Brown, intertwines the interest in spiritualism that was rampant during the American Civil War with the story of soldiers who fought in the war and the families they left behind. So many young men died in bloody conflict it's not surprising that their mothers, fathers and siblings sought to know if their loved ones found comfort on the other side. Photography had only recently been created, so it's maybe not surprising that people tied the mysteries that went on in a photographer's dark room with the mysteries of death.

Readers also see the precarious position that women of the times were often in. Dependent on the men in their lives for support, their entire futures could easily be turned upside down if a husband, father or brother died. During the Civil War, many of them did. Part historical fiction, part mystery, Picture the Dead is deliciously creepy and fun to read. Jennie keeps a scrapbook, and black-and white illustrations portray the things she secretes away: newspaper clippings, photographs, lists, letters, and notes from her twin. I highly recommend this book for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 14 and up.'
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pagese

Posted May 22, 2010

more from this reviewer

review taken from One Book At A Time http://onebooktime.blogspot.com

This book surprised me! I think I was expecting a little bit more of a ghost story, which this story really isn't. You do get a little bit of that creepy feeling every once in awhile. But, it's more of a story about a young women coming to terms with the chaos and loss that surrounds her. I had a hard time getting into the story at first, and wasn't sure how I felt about the illustrations that came at the beginning of each chapter. But, the story builds into a wonderful mystery as you follow Jennie while she's trying to piece together what happened. What she discovers was not what I was expecting and the dramatic ending fit perfectly with the events that unfolded in the book. I enjoyed the spiritualistic aspect of the story. I could take or leave the illustrations though. They were an interesting addition to the story, but I found myself skipping them more than anything.
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Anonymous

Posted April 11, 2011

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Picture the Dead

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Overview

Related Subjects

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

From The Critics

Product Details

Meet the Author

Rating Distribution

Thrushpelt

Historical fiction meets creepy ghost/suspense story

???????

I rok

Blackfire

Courtesy of Mother Daughter Book Club.com

review taken from One Book At A Time http://onebooktime.blogspot.com