Night Cry

By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Subjects: Farm life in fiction, Fear, Farm life, Reading Level-Grade 9, Fear in fiction, Reading Level-Grade 8, Reading Level-Grade 7, Kidnapping, Fiction, Mississippi in fiction, Kidnapping in fiction, Reading Level-Grade 10

Description: There are all kinds of fearful night noises on the backwoods farm where Ellen lives, often by herself because her salesman father travels a lot. But more than anything, Ellen is terrified of their horse, Sleet, who had thrown her brother a year ago and killed him. Then a local boy is kidnapped, and to Ellen the woods are full of devils and demons. One morning she is awakened before dawn by a cry--is it a "night cry" or the cry of the kidnapped child? Does Ellen have the courage to venture out into the dark and find out?