The Beast

I remember this book from when I was young, and ordered it. It gave me the creeps then, and now as well. Kelly's ill-fated trip into the forest to rethink events in her life is interrupted by both the boyfriend she's considering dumping, and by a foul-smelling, aggressive creature which first stalks her, and then violently attacks. A big part of the reason why the book is so effectively creepy is the accompanying drawings. Grayscale and stark, they're pretty scary. The beast is horrid looking, and I found the drawings which portray the beast from a distance to be really effective, let alone the double-page drawing of Kelly's first sighting of the monster by her campsite. As I recall, the moment I turned the page to that picture when I was young scared the pants off of me. As all of the Series Canada books, the story is written very simply, and retains a haunting and memorable tone. The matter-of-fact way in which Kelly describes the gruesome skinning of a rabbit for her campsite dinner, and her fright upon encountering a dismembered moose, sets the stage for any number of terrifying outcomes of her encounter with the beast. The book is short, the book is simple, and was written for the early teenage set, but it retains the spookiness even as I read it as an adult, and I'm happy to have added it to my collection. This book stuck with me after I read it years ago. I never forgot it.