THE INSTITUTE

u003cbu003eFrom #1 u003ciu003eNew York Timesu003c/iu003e bestselling author Stephen King whose “storytelling transcends genre” (u003ciu003eNewsdayu003c/iu003e) comes “another winner: creepy and touching and horrifyingly believable” (u003ciu003eThe Boston Globeu003c/iu003e) about a group of kids confronting evil.u003c/bu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003eIn the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”u003cbru003e u003cbru003eIn this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.u003cbru003e u003cbru003eAs psychically terrifying as u003ciu003eFirestarter,u003c/iu003e and with the spectacular kid power of u003ciu003eItu003c/iu003e, u003ciu003eThe Instituteu003c/iu003e is “first-rate entertainment that has something important to say. We all need to listen” (u003ciu003eThe Washington Postu003c/iu003e).