Guardian of the Hills — Victoria Strauss

A young girl in Depression-era Arkansas discovers her Native American heritage when a series of strange and troubling spiritual events plague an archaeological excavation on sacred lands

The mounds have stood for centuries, holy ground for the Quapaw Indians of rural Arkansas. Pamela and her mother, left destitute by the Great Depression and forced to move in with Pamela's well-to-do grandfather, are newcomers to the small town of Flat Hills. Ostracized by her high school classmates because of her Quapaw heritage -- a culture she knows nothing about -- the quiet, sad teenager silently wishes they had never come to this place. But while wandering alone through the countryside, she stumbles across the sacred hills and discovers an ancient artifact that fires up her grandfather's archaeological fervor. Soon a crew moves in to excavate, ignoring the objections of the local Native population, and Pamela begins to experience nightmares and terrible visions as an ancient evil reaches out from beneath the disturbed hallowed ground.

When a string of inexplicable accidents befall the workers at the digging site, and thousands of crows gather ominously at its edges, a young girl who has always been kept sheltered from her family's past will have to make the most difficult decision of her life and embrace the strange and powerful destiny that she never dreamed could be hers.

A tale of suspense, the supernatural, and coming-of-age, Victoria Strauss's GUARDIAN OF THE HILLS was selected by the New York Public Library as a Book for the Teen Age and was a South Carolina Association of School Librarians Junior Book Award nominee. An ingenious blend of historical fiction and dark fantasy, this is a page-turning tale that thrills and chills in equal measure.