Comic Crush Saturday: Something is Killing the Children: Hope is a Knife by James Tynion IV and Kiersten White

There are certain titles that stop you cold, and Something Is Killing the Children is one of them. James Tynion IV’s comic series pulled me in on that alone, plus the art, plus the fact that James hasn’t missed, and what I found inside was the trope I love most: a group of kids bound together by something terrible, the kind of found-family-by-catastrophe that It introduced me to and that I will follow into any genre. So when a prose novel set in that world landed, co-written by James and Kiersten White, I didn’t need much convincing.

If you haven’t read the comics yet, here’s where to start. Something Is Killing the Children is written by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Werther Dell’Edera, whose art drew me into the story. The premise is simple and deeply unsettling: children in a small Wisconsin town are disappearing and turning up dead. Erica Slaughter, a hunter from a secret organization called the Order of St. George, arrives to find the monster responsible. The catch is that only trained hunters like Erica can even see what’s killing them. She teams up with James, the sole survivor of one of the attacks, and what follows is equal parts monster horror and slow burn about who gets believed, who gets protected, and what it costs to hold the kind of knowledge most people can’t handle. The series is currently at ten collected volumes, with more on the way.

Hope Is a Knife introduces the story to prose readers, followng Erica Slaughter to Badwater, Idaho, where a child is dead and a doomsday preacher is making everything worse. Co-written by James and Kiersten White, it’s a standalone story set in the same world, out now. You don’t need to have read the comics to pick it up, but if you have, it’s exciting to be back with Erica!

 

Something Is Killing the Children: Hope Is a Knife

by James Tynion IV, Kiersten White
Published by: Crown Books for Young Readers
on October 13, 2026
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Welcome to the dark. It has very sharp teeth.
Based on the internationally bestselling comic series, with millions of copies in print,​ the first full-length novel from the terrifying world of Something Is Killing the Children—a stunning collaboration between Eisner-winning co-creator James Tynion IV and #1 New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White
As a Black Mask, Erica Slaughter has a very straightforward job: find the monster, kill the monster, then do it all again. But when she arrives in Badwater, Idaho, nothing is simple. She can’t determine whether the horrific killer of a twelve-year-old was a bear, a person, or something much worse. Complicating matters is the charismatic doomsday preacher who is quickly leading the small town to the verge of hysteria. If Erica wants to save the surviving children, she has to figure out which kid’s fears might have summoned a monster—and fast. Erica must get to the truth before the Order and the town come to the same conclusion: to stop the monster, you have to kill the girl.
Hope Is a Knife is a chilling, original tale in SIKTC lore, where monsters are real and only the hunters of the Order of St. George are equipped to challenge them. Whether or not you’ve already devoured the Eisner Award–winning comics, this standalone vision of supernatural horror is a thrill ride of the highest order.