Hide and Seeker

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness and death.

Hide and Seeker transforms the innocent childhood game of hide-and-seek into a nightmarish horror story; the entire premise of the novel is rooted in a dark reimagining of this game. The text uses this transformation of the beloved game to explore confronting one’s deepest fears. A common game with a long history, hide-and-seek is simple: One child, designated the seeker, closes their eyes while the rest of the children hide. The first child whom the seeker finds becomes the next seeker, while the children that make it safely to a chosen home base are free to hide again in the next game. The novel alludes to the game’s long history when Nia reads a fact from an ice cream wrapper: “Hide and Seek may have originated from a Greek game called […] ‘apo-did-ras-kin-da’” (14). In Hide and Seeker, this simple game becomes the Seeker’s sinister method of capturing children, transforming an innocent pastime into a vehicle for fear and terror. This unique twist explores how a beloved childhood activity can conceal the seeds of danger while offering children solutions for how to face their deepest fears.