The Children's Ward

by Patricia Wallace, Lisa Falkenstern (Cover Artist)

Eight-year-old Abigail was used to cold, uncaring doctors, domineering nurses, the unceasing round of pain and suffering. But from the day she was admitted to Valley Memorial's newly opened children's ward, she felt a sense of terror…
At night the walls seemed to ooze with something dark and glistening. The painted clowns grinned evilly, knowingly. Even the faint sound of windchimes tinkling in the breeze sent strangely expectant chills down her spine.
The force of darkness, of some long-forgotten violence, was seeping into her soul. But instead of fearing it, she fed upon it. And as her eyes took on the glow of those possessed, and her frail body strengthened with the powers of evil, little Abigail—so sweet, so pure, so innocent—was ready to wreak a bloody revenge in the sterile corridors of The Children's Ward.

Genres: Horror, Fiction

364 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1985

Reviews

[Grady Hendrix · Rating 1 out of 5]

Patricia Wallace writes one, of what ultimately became many, tracts dealing with the problems inherent in hiring a skeleton doctor as your family physician. It's worth learning about the dangers.

[Warren Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost didn't read this due to the multiple mediocre to negative reviews, but I was in the mood for a hospital horror, and you can't get more classic than a Patricia Wallace book from the 80s. I'm glad I tried it, as there really is very little to negatively say about this novel. It's no masterpiece. But I enjoyed the story all the way through.

Four children are the first patients of an experimental program to diagnose and treat resistant conditions, and they are housed in an older wing of a California hospital that had previously been used as a psychiatric ward for severely disturbed patients. One of the children seems to have a special talent for getting into the minds of others, and her gift becomes a curse when she taps into an old evil that still haunts the ward.

Thanks to Cemetery Dance for republishing this paperback classic for a new generation of horror fans. The e-book transfer is flawless except for a lack of page breaks that would normally indicate a change in location or character perspective. This led to some confusion as to who was speaking or that the scene had even changed. I don't know if this was a problem with the original text or if this is unique to the e-book. It didn't happen often, but Wallace's writing already makes it hard to tell which character is doing what, so lack of transitional cues added an extra level of frustration to staying oriented within the narrative.

The other issue commonly discussed in reviews is that it is not very scary. I think that perhaps it is a bit tame for many of our desensitized horror buffs, but it is still genuinely creepy and tense enough to keep interest for most "normies."

The pacing is excellent, and the extremely short chapters (some even just a few paragraphs in length) ingeniously keep you wanting to see what happens next without the whole work feeling too scattershot or ADD. I found myself saying, "Oh, there's only two more minutes in this chapter? I can afford the time to read through this and the next one..." But then the next chapter would end on a cliffhanger, and I just couldn't stop there and be able to sleep. Before I knew it, I'd burned through almost 400 pages in a few hours.

The ending felt a bit abrupt and left a lot of questions unanswered. Also, there were missed opportunities for real investment in characters, and these failures left the large cast largely relegated to disposable casualties of the antagonistic supernatural forces. The child, Abigail, is an angry soul who has been neglected and her very birth has been treated as a mistake by the adults around her. She takes her anger out on people who she sees as being neglectful of children. In all cases, the victims of her vengeance seem to have done nothing wrong, or are so nasty and selfish that they deserve their comeuppance all too well. Here is where I think the author could have inserted a little more complexity into her characters, because as written, the death-toll invokes few emotions for the reader. I would like to have seen more tragic misunderstandings, characters who seemed to be selfish but who really had better intentions than the immature mind of Abigail could understand. Wallace almost went there with a side plot between a cosmopolitan divorcee and her Native American ex-husband, a plot which really could have been more nuanced and tragic, indicating a potential resolution of differences should Abigail have not interfered. Instead, it seems the author was running into a hard deadline before knowing how to satisfactorily end the story to which she was building up.

Overall, a decent slice of 80s paperback horror mania. Pick it up if you are a fan of spooky children, medical thrillers, hospitals horrors, psychic powers. Avoid if you are expecting Skipp and Specter or Ed Lee.

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Even with large font, 1-2 page chapters, and a moderate length of 364 pages, The Children’s Ward has pretty much zero redeemable qualities.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is an 80’s Zebra by Patricia Wallace…in other words, I shouldn’t have expected a single thing about this one to be good, but I hoped it’d be of the “so good it’s bad” variety. Unfortunately it’s not even that.

Nothing about this novel makes sense because there’s little to no explanation for anything, except a mild throwaway reference during the last 2 paragraphs…and like everything else about this story, it’s pointless.

The Children’s Ward is remarkably banal too. The characters are all 1 dimensional with paper thin motivations and characteristics. Hot woman doctor? Check. Angry cheating housewife? Check. Henpecked father who just wants the best for his daughter? Check. Bad kids with psychological but never explained powers? Oh that’s there too. But not once did Wallace even try to make them seem fun or interesting. It actually got to the point that i couldn’t even remember who was who because they all did the same damn thing.

While this is still a classic Zebra for that cover alone, it’s by no means a classic for its actual content. In fact, this one ranks amongst one of the worst of the worst Zebras I’ve read (and that’s saying a lot, considering how terrible a lot of Zebras were).

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Word on the street is that novels by Patricia Wallace are a bit of a snooze-fest. Can’t really say that I totally disagree. All the characters are fairly one dimensional and in The Children’s Ward there exist so many I had a hard time deciphering who was who. There’s zero suspense. The plot makes little to no sense and the end wraps up so quickly that I had a “Wait...what?” moment of eye rolling proportion. All that aside, I was somehow able to picture all the little-psychic-girl-gone-amuck shenanigans as a campy 80s horror flick, complete with synth soundtrack. That somehow made it slightly more bearable. Not the worst from Zebra. But pretty damn close.

[Wayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading this, it still does not feel like a Zebra horror book to me. It has all the hallmarks of the publisher. Kids in peril and crazy evil thing holding a kid on its cover. Thats where it stops. More of a medical thriller without the thrill. It has some good parts, but it just gets bogged down. The ending just had me shaking my head and wanting a better result.

[Joshua Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing read. The writing style was simple and easy to follow but the story itself was weak. Not much happens throughout the entire story. Sure, some characters are mysteriously killed and of course we know who is responsible all along. Then the ending just seemed rushed. There was some promise for a decent horror story but too little throughout.

[Frankenoise · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a difficult read. With a 106 chapters I thought I would get through this book quickly but since I kept getting frustrated by nothing happening I kept putting the book down!

The story centers around a 8.5 year old girl (they make a point that she's 8.5 a few times so I thought I would too) named Abigail. She has powers to enter other kids dreams in the Children's Ward. This ward has a dark past with a patient killing hospital staff in 1938. So we already now history may repeat itself as we forward 1984. And it almost does.

Abigail spends more than half the novel just starring oddly at people while everyone runs around looking at EEG readings and blabbing about the kids too much. The ending is fairly anticlimactic and predictable too.

The novel is frustrating because you'll read a small chapter of something interesting followed by 30 of people trying to figure out what's going on or reading about the kids parents splitting up. I don't really care about that. I'm reading a horror story... I want horror!!! Some of the deaths too are just people vanishing so it's very disappointing.

I like the idea behind the plot but it wasn't executed properly. Would have made a good X-Files episode I think.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four children with dissimilar ailments are continuously observed in an isolated California hospital that once housed the criminally insane. Awesome! Unfortunately, particularly for the reader, we don’t get this plot until the latter half of the book. The rest of the story reads like a script made for a medical soap opera show one might view in hell. Even for Zebra, this is a biological and psychological mess.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you judge a book by the cover, you expect this book to be a fairly scary read. However, it really never gets to that level. The story takes place in a hospital with a very special little girl causing tragedies to those she percieves as a threat. But, many of the deaths she causes are for reasons that are not clearly explained. A quick read but a not particularly engaging one. This is out of print now and I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find it. (originally posted on Amazon.com)

[Bobby Stringini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is this a good book? Not really. The story is fairly shallow, and the storyline is all over the place. Is this a fast, enjoyable read written in a way that the pages just fly by without you noticing? Very much so. A light little horror novel that still manages to entertain despite it's flaws. Will be giving more Patricia Wallace books a try.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me forever to finish. I really disliked the chapter layout, it made it feel like little vignettes throughout. The story could’ve come together better if there were just breaks within the chapters. The story was very predictable, although I found myself getting through parts quickly. Glad I got it out of the way but NEVER AGAIN

[Karolina Pałka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel unsatisfied. I think this story had a lot of potential to be a good horror story. Kids, a hospital, and unexplained deaths are a recipe for a chilling story. Instead, it fell short. A lot of things were left unsaid. I was hoping for a crazy twist at the end. "Is that it?" was my last thought.

[Megan Hex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book basically made no sense BUT was entertaining. As soon as you start hitting the mysterious deaths, it becomes pretty darn fun trying to figure out who's next.

[Mel Newman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exactly what I expected from a book I picked up in a campground laundromat free library. The story was weak but the short chapters kept me turning the pages.

[Scott Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an easy read. Better than I thought it might be

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wallace is actually a great writer. Her pacing is breathless and she's great at juggling so many characters. Don't expect over-the-top horror (the covers for her novels are wonderfully lurid but they don't match up with her slow-build approach to very light horror fiction), but Wallace's book are worth seeking out. This one is a good example.

[Jason Vedder]

Image seems familiar and I had read Wallace's Twice Blessed and enjoyed as a passable time killer, so this one MAY be one I read as I awaited reading King

[JohnMichael]

I read this in middle school, but I don’t remember much except something about a pool filling up? I dunno.