A Scout is Brave
Will Ludwigsen
"It was in Innsmouth where I met the greatest Scout I’ve ever known, a boy named Aubrey Marsh, and he’s the reason I’m still here and the reason I still believe it’s worth being human, even though he’s not quite either of those things anymore."
In the summer of 1963, Bud Castillo moved with his family from busy Queens, NY, to the bleak town of Innsmouth, MA, after a local oil consortium hired his father to help with a drilling platform off the coast. Bud meets a kindred spirit in the town library, Aubrey, the only other boy in town. Scouting is the cornerstone of Bud's life, and founding a troop in Innsmouth is the only way he can conceive of coping with what he is sure is a disastrous move.
But the delights of that summer are coming to an end, as Bud discovers that Reverend Pritchett of the Evangelical Progress Temple has plans to return Innsmouth to greatness and glory.
Paperback, 150 pages
Cover and interior design by Jeremy Parker
"Will Ludwigsen does an outstanding job of sucking the reader into the time of JFK, racial unrest and the feeling of change coming around the corner with Bob Dylan (unless you live in Innsmouth). However, he simultaneously makes it unnervingly clear there is something different about this particular small town and that thirteen-year-old narrator Bud Castillo is not exactly sure why. A Scout is brave in the face of these mysterious changes. " - Ginger Nuts of Horror
"With teen protagonists and equal attention paid to the narrator’s coming-of-age and the eldritch horrors (possibly) lurking under the water, this perfectly polished gem of a novel is ideal for readers who loved YA horror ... as well as for adult fans of cosmic horror, such as John Langan’s The Fisherman." - Booklist, starred review
"Drawing parallels to Stephen King's It, this novel seamlessly intertwines elements of horror and coming-of-age." - Independent Book Review