The World Inside

In this compelling and accessible novel for teen readers, an aspiring artist must investigate ghostly paintings in order to find a way to help her great-aunt--the painter of the images–wake up from a coma.

With her best friends off enjoying Paris and her mom expressing disapproval at every turn, Tamika Warren knows her summer can’t get any worse. Then her family gets the news that her great-aunt has fallen into a coma. Tamika is stuck joining her mom in Virginia to prepare Aunt Lati’s old farmhouse for when she wakes up. As if that weren’t bad enough, a friendly neighbor describes the farmhouse as “haunted.” Tamika is stunned from the moment she steps into the farmhouse–but from the beautiful landscape paintings covering every wall, all of them done by Aunt Lati. A developing artist herself, Tamika is eager to know the great-aunt who created these amazing paintings. But Aunt Lati still hasn’t woken up from her coma. And the longer Tamika and her mom stay in the farmhouse, the stranger things become. The paintings within the farmhouse seem to react to Tamika’s presence, hinting at disturbing secrets, until it seems like the paintings themselves long to ooze out into the real world. But that’s not possible, is it? Characterized by exciting, fast-paced plots and themes that are relevant for high school students, Horizon’s Hi-Lo books are both engaging and easy to read. Short chapters, simple sentence structures, and an accessible format make these books perfect for teen reluctant readers. Horizon books are written at a 2nd- to 3rd-grade reading level with an interest level of ages 14 and up.