Ghost Squad, by Claribel A. Ortega

Happy Book Birthday to Ghost Squad, by Claribel A. Ortega, an exciting story about two girls racing to set to rest a plague of evil spirits (that they might have helped awaken).

On paper, 12-year-old Dominican-American Lucely and her father, who makes a living running ghosts tours, live alone.  In actuality, their home is full of the family ghosts, living on as fireflies, but to her eyes appearing as the people they once were.  But something bad is happening to her ghost family...they are starting to fade.  So she and her best friend, Syd, try to find a magical solution to the problem in the old, forbidden spell book owned by Syd's witchy grandmother.

But maybe their spell casting attempt has made things worse.  Now dark magic is afoot in her town, and the mayor himself is spearheading an attempt to wake angry ghosts.  On a class field trip to the town hall, Lucely overhears the mayor and his henchmen are planning a ritual to take absolute control over the town by overrunning it with spirits.  The firefly tree of Lucely's family is a defender of the town, but with her family spirits weakening, how much longer will it be able stand against the new supernatural enemies?

So Syd and Lucely set to work to thwart the mayor's plan.  When their home made attempts at ghostcatchers fail, they set out to find the missing pages from the spellbook they used before...pages that were intered with the dead....who are now waking up!

It's a fun, spook filled race to settle the dead.  The pages, many filled with ghosts, some malignant and creepy, others warm and loving, turn quickly!  Lucely and Syd make a great team; their different strengths complement each other nicely.  And Lucely's extended family adds warmth and interest, although also a sadness, because many died too soon.

There are quite a few ghost hunting books out there (like Victoria Schwab's City of Ghosts series), but this one stands out because of its roots in Dominican culture, and because many of the ghost are family, which  makes the contact between the living and the dead more immediate and personal.