LitPick Review
Haunted Heritage by Michael Norman and Beth Scott is a compilation of ghost stories and unusual events that have occurred throughout North America. Divided into chapters by region, (the Northeast, the Midwest, the South, the West, and Canada) each section contains stories devoted to the history and culture of a particular area. There are twelve stories about ghost sightings on college campuses and sixteen stories of appearing lights; no one knows where they came from or their significance. Haunted Heritage is almost like a textbook of scary, gory, or just plain weird events that have supposedly occurred in the United States and Canada. The stories are well researched and provide insightful views of the supernatural.
Opinion:
Haunted Heritage contains too many ghost stories. The majority of them are fascinating and intriguing, and some I even wished I was there. After awhile, however, the similarities and length of the accounts become barriers to potentially great stories. The book becomes tedious to read and some of the stories are boring as they are too factual and the information takes away from the general theme of the story. One story I particularly liked was a great tale of the strange events that occurred on Larabee Street. The story was frightening and had me turning pages, however, towards the end, it was devoted to what happened to the family of the story,including information about the sale of their house and how much the family lost in value. Haunted Heritage has such fantastic potential to be a book on every child and adult nightstand. It contains stories teenagers will read to friends at sleepovers, trying to scare each other into nightmares. However, it lost its appeal with too detailed and informative accounts. Haunted Heritage is worth the effort, if only it was not deluded with unrelated information, it would be perfect.
