"Black Harvest" by Ann Pilling is a mystery book with terror ripping its way through the pages. The book all starts with a lovely beginning with three children on their way to Ireland to stay in a luxury bungalow for a month. Colling and Prill assume that their holiday is going to be spoiled because of their cousin Oliver being their. It turns out though that their holiday has more surprises in then they expected.
once settled into the bungalow the father leaves to do a job and the mother, three children plus the baby and dog stay in the bungalow for their holiday. Through the book things start to happen that nobody can really explain. The vivid nightmares that Prill starts to dream plus the mould that starts to grow on collins bed covers. Through the beginning of the book nothing seems to happen to Oliver, until he starts to dig a hole infront of the house, he suddenly starts to find mysterious things like a dogs skull an old rattle and a piece of silk that all mean something to Donal morrissey who happens to be the nerest neighbour to them. When Oliver spots aload of bugs crawling on Mr Morrissey's potatoe farm he decides to try and save it for the man. He does something that involves fire but because of the dryness of the land through the weather over the last week. The fire spread all around Mr Morrissey's home. Oliver was a bright lad that knew everything about everything. He had read up on Ireland before coming on holiday and also knew the history of the place aswell. The potatoe fammin when people died hundreds of years before. This also explained alot about Prills dream being about a skinny woman crying at the window of the bungalow through the night. Collin finds a tunnel with people's names carved into the walls also he too starts to see wierd things, hears a baby crying in the night which turns out not to be baby Alison. The dog goes ill and so does baby Alison.Collin starts to dream about gettting buried alive in this tunnel with all different people, men, women and children. The milk and bread aswell were going mouldy within hours of them being freshly made. The children stuck together and decided to work the puzzle out piece by piece and they did. All the mysterious things that happen relate to an incident that happened in history on the land where the bungalow had been built. It was also to do with Donal Morrisseys reletaves. but... I cant really say any more because i would give it away. Definetly a book to read. I think it was maybe a tiny bit young for me to read but all the same i did read it and i did enjoy it alot. I recommend this book to youngsters around 14-16 years of age.
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