HUSH-A-BYE

A doll’s head mysteriously helps two sisters deal with their school bullies—until its evilness becomes uncontrollable.

Lucy and her younger sister, Antonia, live in a trailer with their waitress mom, which leads mean girls at their middle school to taunt Lucy with the nickname Trash Licker. Lucy tries to keep her head down and stay quiet, but Antonia is different. When the pair find an old doll’s head by the river, Antonia demands to keep it. She names it Hush-a-bye, talks to it, and tells Lucy that it talks back. Wary at first, Lucy begins to believe after impossible things happen to those who have wronged the sisters, and Antonia says that the doll is responsible. However, Lucy soon realizes that Hush-a-bye has its own desires and will stop at nothing to get what it wants, no matter who gets hurt in the process. Creepy dolls are a horror staple, and Hush-a-bye fits right in. The full extent of her scariness is only exposed in the climactic finale; before that point, Lucy and Antonia’s realistic sibling relationship propels the story, and it’s the everyday cruelty of other kids that is most frightening. An abusive absent father is mentioned but doesn’t play any substantial role, so this element feels underexplored. Main characters are cued as White; Lucy’s favorite teacher is a gay man, and Antonia is possibly neurodiverse.

A winning combination of sisterhood, school, and a spooky doll.