The Veritas Project

Author: Frank Peretti (christian author)

Rating: 4

Summary:  The Veritas Project has two books- Hangman's Curse, and Nightmare Academy.  Hangman's Curse is about high school being haunted by a hundred year old ghost, who is injuring high school students.  In order to find out the truth, teen agents- Elijah and Elisha- go undercover, and are revealed to the ghost story.  Elijah befriends a troubled gothic teen, who wishes death for the people who bully him.  Elisha befriends a nerdy boy, who is also being bullied, but he is much more mild mannered about it.  Later, you find out that the nerdy kid has been tricking every single person in the school to believe there's a ghost, by using the venom of a spider to make people hallucinate.

  Elijah and Elisha go back undercover in Nightmare Academy, to visit a safe house for runaway kids called, Knightmoore Academy.  There they find that the kids are being brainwashed to think a certain way, and they have to fight to not be caught up in it.  By the end of the book, they find out that the teachers for the Academy are planning to blow up the place, and then take their curriculum to the rest of the world.  Elijah and Elisha eventually stop it, and free all of the kids.

           Violence and gore:  In Hangman's Curse there are teens hallucinating, and in some copies of the book, there is a picture of what the hallucinating kids see.  It is the ghost of a kid who hung himself, and after seeing that picture, I was too scared to put the book down.  My suggestion is that you don't let your kid read the version with the pictures unless you think they can.  In Nightmare Academy, two fights occur, but neither of them are very gory.

           Morals:  Hangman's Curse deals with the effects of bullying, and how we should respond to it.  Nightmare Academy deals with the modern education system, where they tell you to believe something, and expect you to believe it, because they said it was true.  Also, Elijah and Elisha are constantly pointing those around them back to God, and are examples of how we should be loving to everyone around us.  They show how to love through actions, and not just words.

Neutral, 9-12 years old, horror