The Creeping Shadow, by Jonathan Stroud

The Creeping Shadow, by Jonathan Stroud, is the fourth book about Lockwood and Co., about a group of kids fighting malevolent ghosts in an alternate England where the dead have become a serious problem.  If you loved the first book, and why would you not, because it is excellent, but found books 2 and 3 somewhat less engrossing, do not let that stop you from reading The Creeping Shadow! 

All that made the first book good is here as well--the hair-raising psychic investigations, including some really horrible ghosts, interesting dynamics between the team members that don't slow down the narrative, and solid world-building.  Here in the forth book, as an added bonus, there begins to be some actual progress on understanding why problem of ghosts happened to begin with, which makes it an even more interesting read.

At the end of book 3, Lucy left Lockwood and Co. to work on her own, which was a real downer of ending.  Happily, she rejoins the team in The Creeping Shadow, and her time on her own offers the opportunity see the other members of gang--Lockwood, George, and Holly, with fresh eyes.  The first ghost they tackle when they are once more together is really really gruesome--he was a cannibal murderer, and if you are squeamish about ghostly body parts, be warned!  I don't generally like horror qua horror, but I was utterly gripped.

So gripped by the whole book, in fact, especially once Larger Elements of the Problem began to unfold, that I stayed up past my bedtime to read it all in a single sitting.  The only downer--it ends with a teasing note--not quite a cliffhanger, but awfully near the cliff's edge, and I want the fifth book Now.

side note--I am now totally shipping George and Lucy.  Although the Skull comes to life as more of a person in this book, and his ambiguous, trickster personality is not as unappealing as one would expect from an evil (?) bottled skull......

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher for Cybils Awards judging

The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart, by Lauren DeStefano

If you like orphans and ghosts, and creepy mysteries, The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart, by Lauren DeStefano (Bloomsbury, middle grade, Sept 13, 2016) is a book for you!

Marybeth and Lionel are best friends, even though they are completely different.  Both are orphans, looked after in the crowded home of Mrs. Mannerd, but Lionel is a wild boy, who thinks of himself as a feral creature, and who acts like one.  Marybeth is the opposite; she is reliable, conscientious, well-mannered, and well-groomed.  Then Lionel, prowling outdoors as is his wont, sees a strange  creature of blue light, and the blue whatever-it-is takes possession of Marybeth. 

Sometimes Marybeth can hold on to her self, but sometimes the fear and anger of the blue creature overcomes her control.  Her eyes change color, and she acts even more wild than Lionel.  Lionel can't help Marybeth control the creature.  But in order to help his friend, who Mrs. Mannerd thinks is loosing her mind, Lionel must do something even harder, and act as though he is a human child, so that he and Marybeth can stay together long enough to find a way to save her before she is sent away.

And this means solving a decades old, horribly sad mystery, that can only be done if the blue creature will cooperate....

Lionel's own story is a sad one too; he has good reasons for not wanting to be a human child, and the tension of his situation adds great poignancy to the story.  Mrs. Mannerd too is revealed to be not just a stereotypical runner-of-foster-home, but someone with whom the reader can sympathize.  And Marybeth is loveable, and it is tense as all get out to see her struggle with the blue creature. 

Things move along swiftly, with lots of supernatural suspense, in a tight package of just over 208 pages.  The relatively short length, and the relatable characters, make this a good one for young readers who want ghost stories that pull at the heartstrings.  I myself read it with much enjoyment in a single sitting.

Note of caution-- the ultimate answer to the mystery involves murder and the strong implication of sexual violence, but it is not explicitly stated and younger readers will probably not grasp all that is hinted at.  Likewise, it becomes clear that Lionel's birth family were abusive and neglectful, but again the details aren't spelled out.

review copy received from the publisher

(The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart is eligible for the 2016 Cybils Awards in Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, and has not yet been nominated....so if you love it, feel free to throw its hat into the ring--more information on how to do so here)

In a Blue Velvet Dress, by Catherine Sefton, for Timeslip Tuesday

Today's timeslip book, In a Blue Velvet Dress, by Catherine Sefton (1973),  is an older one from my shelves...and at first I though I misremembered it had time travel in it, because it seemed like a ghost story.  But happily I enjoyed the re-reading of it enough to keep going, and indeed, there are time slip elements toward the end.

Jane's parents have gone off on a sailing trip to Scotland, leaving her in the care of a middle aged couple who love children and have none of her own, in a one horse town in Northern Ireland.  Jane, somewhat disgruntled about being dumped, has fortified herself with a whole suitcase of her favorite books (she is an inveterate bookworm).  But when she unpacks, she realizes to her horror that she has her father's suitcase instead (and he has all her Chalet School books etc., which is doubtless dismaying him too....).  The house where she's staying has only the telephone book, and even Jane can't read that, and there is no bookstore.  Horror!

But then every night a new book appears on Jane's bedside table, only to vanish the next day.  Some are old favorites (E. Nesbit), others are old book's she's never heard of.  And then Jane realizes that her mysterious benefactor is the ghost of a young girl, a friendly ghost, Mary, who also loved to read, whose father had drowned at sea.  One night she slips though time to the bookroom of Mary and her father, and a lovely room it is! 

When Jane's parents sail back from Scotland into a fierce storm, and the lightboats are called out to rescue them, Jane is of course horribly afraid for them, but Mary comes to comfort her, and time slips again, so that Jane sees the night long ago when Mary's father drowned.  Jane's parents are more fortunate, and Jane realizes that far from Mary wanting to be helped, Mary came to help her, because she is really just about the nicest bookworm ghost anyone could ever want.

There's more to the story--Jane makes a real life friend as well, and they go exploring and have a few minor misadventures  (which is good for Jane, because reader though I am reading isn't everything!), and there are many bits of humor.  But mostly the appeal of the story is Jane's hunger for reading matter!  The time slipping is minor, and doesn't exactly Advance the Plot, but it makes the book more magical.  I'm glad that I held on to it--it was a very nice re-read.

Happily it was reprinted in 2002 (the edition shown above), and so there are cheap copies around if you want to try it!

The Ministry of Ghosts, by Alex Shearer

The titular ministry of The Ministry of Ghosts, by Alex Shearer (Sky Pony Press, May 2016;  2014 in the UK), is a dusty old backwater left behind by the forward march of government bureaucracy, and its four (and a cat) employees are utterly and completely failing in their mandate to produce tangible evidence that ghosts are real.  This failure has come to the attention of a government auditor who gives the ministry three months to produce a ghost, or it will be shut down for good.   In desperation, the four ministry workers break out of their hardened ruts of inactivity and hire two local children to be their ghost hunters...and the results are rather more dramatic than they could ever have hoped for!

I mysef liked it just fine, but I think that the person I would most enthusiastically press it on would be a college student who enjoyed MG fantasy a lot back in the day and who is in the middle of exam week and who wants something pleasingly diverting that, though it has interesting twists, is not terribly complicated with regard to fantasy world building and difficult names, and which, although good and interesting and amusing, isn't so rapid in its forward momentum that you have to stay up all night reading it (this is a Bad Thing during exam week!).  It also ends with a Heartwarming tie up of the story line, the sort of ending that is a Comfort in times of Stress.  I think it would be just about perfect for that reader.  It's also a very good one for a grown-up reader of mg fantasy to read in less than ideal circumstances (like in the dentist's office, or other places where you need a book that will hold your interest without making demands).

I am less certain that the target audience of 9-12 year old kids will persevere long enough to get to the actually ghostly adventures.  The development of the story is not typical of today's standard kids starring in fantasy adventure--the first large chunk is a poke at slacker government workers and the keen government inspectors hunting them down.   Generally in MG fantasy, the reader meets the kids in medias res, with the kids battling wolves or being prophesized about or eaten by trolls or all of the above at once, and then the author pulls back from the slavering jaws/bad rhymes and gives us backstory.  Here it is not until page 75 that the Girl Protagonist, Tuppence, appears, and the Boy Protagonist, Tim, arrives in the next chapter.  And although they do go ghost hunting together, it is the sort of ghost hunting where after one failure in a cemetery, the next two and half months pass in a page of nothing happening.

But it is interesting, in its small tasty details of place and character (both of kids and ministry empoyees) and the trail of clues leading to the ghostly extravaganza of the ending was lots of fun to follow!  I'm just not sure young readers will stick with it long enough to appreciate it.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Seven Dead Pirates, by Linda Bailey

I am not fond of pirates, so the fact that I sincerely (really) enjoyed Seven Dead Pirates, by Linda Bailey (Tundra Books, September 2015) suggests to me that readers who do in fact actively seek out pirate book will enjoy it very much indeed! (with the caveat that the action takes place not on the rolling main but on dry land, with just a splash, as it were, of ocean adventure at the very end....)

When Lewis's mother inherits the old family house by the ocean, they have to live in it for six months before it can be sold.  His mom and dad are unenthusiastic; it's a bit of a fixer upper.  But Lewis loves the tower room he claims as his own...until he finds that it's occupied by seven dead pirates.  He agrees to help them get back to their ship (conveniently located in a nearby museum) and gradually overcomes his (very natural) fear and uncertainty, even coming to enjoy reading Treasure Island out loud to them.  It's not as if he has any other friends; his horrible shyness has seen to that, and he is bullied at school (along with at least half of this year's middle grade speculative fiction protagonists).

So Lewis comes up with a plan to take the pirate ghosts to the museum on Halloween, the one day that even if they turn visible (which they do under stress) people won't be all that consternated.  And in the meantime the pirates are a tricksy bunch, although they do end up helping Lewis grow in confidence....as does the arrival of a not quite but almost manic pixie dream girl at school, who can openly admit to wearing thrift store clothes and still be cool, who finds out about the pirates and is happy to visit them!

Things I liked--

--It's a great old house.  There was tension about whether it would be sold and demolished, but this was resolved.

--even though pirates aren't my first choice, this was a really interesting plot, and it worked well. Pirates and boy helped each other believably. 

--the magic is intergenerational; Lewis inherits the pirates, more or less, from his great-grandfather, and family history is a part of the story.

--there was a really cool kickass kindergarten girl who stood up to the bully on Lewis' behalf.  I really liked her!

So if "ghosts pirates" doesn't appeal, don't be off-put.  It's a fun, fast read, and I'm glad it was nominated for the Cybils, because I wouldn't have read it otherwise.  Although I am glad my own old house is ghost free....I wouldn't want to share my bedroom with them!

The Kat Sinclair Files--Dead Air, by Michelle Schusterman

The Kat Sinclair Files--Dead Air, by Michelle Schusterman (Grosset & Dunlap, middle grade, Sept. 2015)

14 year-old Kat Sinclair's dad is the new host of Passport to Paranormal, a not-exactly-high end ghost hunting show.  When Kat is offered the chance to go to haunted places around the world with her dad for the next year, vs staying with her mom in Ohio, she chose the former (in large part because her mom had walked out on the family a few months earlier, and Kat hasn't been taking her calls).  The Passport to Paranormal's crackerjack team is all set to explore haunted tunnels in Rotterdam, and so it's off to the Netherlands.  There Kat finds out that she'll be joined in on-location schooling by Oscar, the nephew of the producer; unfortunately, they immediately loathe each other. 

But there are lots of distractions from unpleasant Oscar.  Strange things are happening to Kat in particular, and as her blog of her experiences with the show (the titular Kat Sinclair Files) gains traction, and she becomes an observer of its fandom, she becomes aware of unsettling rumors about the show.  Kat was a skeptic, but she's about to find out that ghosts--both the supernatural kind, and the metaphorical kind--are real, and both threaten the lives (and the livelihood) of the crew of P. to P. 

As Kat and Oscar become allies in solving the mysteries of P. and P., which are about to become potentially deadly, they become friends, helping each other come to terms with their own personal ghosts (Kat's mother, and Oscar's father, who doesn't know Oscar is gay).  All this going on in a swirl of actual hauntings, first in the Netherlands and then in an old prison in Belgium, and the result is  great reading for the young fan of paranormal mysteries!

The sprinkling of online chat in the text makes it especially friendly for those who like their attention spans bouncing (kids these days); although I do not need my stories broken up into digestible chunks, this did not stop me from enjoying it myself!  Fans of horror movies will find Kat a kindred spirit, fans of girl detectives will perhaps be critical of her detecting skills (pretty much non existent), but will probably enjoy the mystery none-the-less.   There's not all that much in your face horror (the ghosts are sort of off to the side most of the time) but there's enough to make it appeal to young fans of the spooky.  It's suitable for kids as young as 8 or so (no one actually dies, and there is no unpleasant ectoplasm).

Adding to the appeal is that Kat's a kid of color--her dad is black, her mom's white.  It's not a plot point, but it's made solidly clear in the text, and she's shown as the brown girl she is on the cover.   The last five Elementary/Middle grade speculative fiction books I have read for this year's Cybils Awards have all had diverse characters front and center, which is great!  Mostly brown girls, though, so I'm hoping I'll be happily surprised by other non-whitenesses as I keep reading.

I am writing this just after reading Roger Sutton's editorial at the Horn Book, continuing on at Facebook, about whether throwing characters into a book who happen to be gay, or black, or have disabilities, or other etcs, is like throwing rainbow sprinkles in, to "check off the diversity box."  So of course I had to ask myself whether I thought Oscar being gay was a rainbow sprinkle or not (and I also am of course asking myself about Sprinkling diversity in general).  I decided Oscar's sexual orientation is not a sprinkle.  The emotional situation he is in (a bad one) with regard to his father, which affects his actions and reactions, stems from the fact that he is gay (which his father doesn't know), and so although he didn't Have to be gay, and it doesn't have anything to do with the Plot, it is a perfectly reasonable part of his personal story.  

Kat's ethnicity is also not at all germane to the plot, and I wouldn't have minded her thinking about it more than she does (which is only twice in a not in depth way),  but I'm not calling her a sprinkle just because her skin color just happens to be brown and she doesn't present me with the perspective of a brown girl thinking about race while travelling in modern Europe, which would be interesting to me, but which isn't what Kat happens to be thinking about.  I do sort of see Roger's point, and I have sometimes felt I was being sprinkled at by authors, but I think at this point we need diversity in our children's books so much that I will take sprinkles on my vanilla ice-cream as better than nothing, even though I might prefer a more interesting basal frozen desert unit than vanilla ice-cream if given the choice.   I think having books where it is taken for granted that a bi-racial girl's brown dad can be a tv host, and where she herself can be the heroine of an exciting story are good books to have on hand.

Ghostlight, by Sonia Gensler, with giveaway!

I went into Ghostlight, by Sonia Gensler (Knopf Books for Young Readers, August 2015), expecting Gothic southern horror, tilted toward Young Adult readers, but instead I found an engrossing not-quite-Gothic horror that's solidly middle grade, where the ghosts don't overwhelm the middle grade concerns of growing up, making friends, and figuring out old mysteries in true middle grade style!

Avery has always loved spending the summers at her grandmother's old farm, with its sprawling acres of woods and fields.  Over the years she and her older brother have made up a whole imaginary kingdom, full of stories, and she can't wait to play again.  But her brother sends that plan crashing down to earth--he says he's too old now for make believe games.   Then Avery meets Julian, an aspiring film maker staying with his dad in a cottage her grandma rents out to summer visitors.  And Julian ropes her in to a new project--making a horror movie about the Hilliard House, once the main family home, abandoned for  years.

Avery is willing to be educated in the nuances of horror movies, and she likes Julian well enough.  But she's been strictly, firmly forbidden by her grandmother to go near the old house...and there are reasons.  She goes along with Julian's plans regardless, and learns for herself the reasons for her grandmother's prohibition.  Hilliard House holds secrets of long ago tragedy, and is indeed haunted.  Avery and Julian become detectives looking for clues about the child who died there long ago, but will they be able to learn enough to set the dead at rest before new tragedy strikes?

It is a creepy ghost story, sure, but not one that is so horrific or gory so as to be the stuff of nightmares.  And the ghost story is so nicely set within the friendship/film-making/historical detection/family tension stories all going on that it is more than just a creepy story; many middle grade readers will find much to relate to here, even if they aren't necessarily ghost fans themselves. This one is particularly perfect for the budding cinematographer (I loved Julian's tips on the tricks used to make scary movies scary), a good one for those who like to explore big old fictional houses, and a good one for just about anyone who likes ghostly mystery! I liked this particular ghost lots, and enjoyed the twists of the historical mystery. In short,  Avery's journey from a somewhat whiney beginning (which unfortunately might put a few readers off) to a confident teller of stories in her own right makes for very good reading indeed. 

I'm happy to be able to offer a giveaway of a copy of Ghostlight; please leave a comment before midnight on midnight, Sept. 23rd to enter (US address only).

Sonia Gensler is also the author of the young adult novels The Dark Between and The Revenant. She grew up in a small Tennessee town and spent her early adulthood collecting impractical degrees from various Midwestern universities. A former high school English teacher, she now writes full-time in Oklahoma. 

To learn more, and to download a free curriculum guide, visit soniagensler.com or visit  @soniagensler

 

Follow the Ghostlight tour!

Mon, Sept 14	Cracking the Cover	http://www.crackingthecover.com/
Tues, Sept 15	Ms. Yingling Reads	http://msyinglingreads.blogspot.com/
Wed, Sept 16	Charlotte's Library	http://charlotteslibrary.blogspot.com/
Thurs, Sept 17	The Book Smugglers	http://thebooksmugglers.com/
Fri, Sept 18	Unleashing Readers	http://www.unleashingreaders.com/
Mon, Sept 21	The Hiding Spot	http://thehidingspot.blogspot.com/
Tues, Sept 22	Proseandkahn	http://proseandkahn.blogspot.com/
Wed, Sept 23	Word Spelunking	http://wordspelunking.blogspot.com/
Thurs, Sept 24	The Book Monsters	http://thebookmonsters.com/
Fri, Sept 25	GreenBeanTeenQueen	http://www.greenbeanteenqueen.com/
Mon, Sept 28	The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia	http://hauntedorchid.blogspot.com/
Tues, Sept 29	Kid Lit Frenzy	http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/
Wed, Oct 1	Mother Daughter Book Club	http://motherdaughterbookclub.com/

Check out the trailer!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfVe3jER9qU

The House on Stone's Throw Island, by Dan Poblocki

Dan Poblocki is my go-to author when I need to recommend horror to an eleven or twelve year old, and his latest book, The House on Stone's Throw Island (Scholastic, Aug. 25, 2015) is another fine atmospheric and spooky story for that demographic.

Two kids, Josie and Eli, are thrown into each other's company when they head out to Stone's Throw Island, off the coast of Maine, where their older siblings are going to get married.   The house is big, the island is isolated, and as Josie and Eli start exploring it, it soon becomes clear that it is a very, very creepy place indeed.   Caves flooded at high tide echo with a voice crying for help in German, and Josie's room is haunted by the specter of a girl her own age.

And then things go really bad!  The ghosts of Stone's Throw Island are desperate for revenge, and they will possess the living in order to get it!  It is rather direct horror with lots of  omg is the really happening type terror; after the initial gentle creepiness, things explode.  If you want a book in which a ghostly Nazi submarine crewed by friends and family possessed by Nazi ghosts pursues the heroes, this is the book you have been waiting for! 

Josie and Eli add to the character side of things, especially Josie, from whose perspective we see the horror unfold.  The island setting and the historical mystery that Josie and Eli must solve, with the help of a diary written by a girl on the island in 1942,  also add elements that will appeal to those who find the ghost sub and its zombified ghost crew a tad over the top (which would be me). 

That being said, the premise of Germans in Atlantic waters is based on fact; they were here, within spitting distance of the Atlantic coast, sinking ships right and left.

Dan Pobloki will be at Kidlitcon 2015, as part of a panel on Middle Grade Horror! So come on down (or up) to Baltimore October 9th and 10th!)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

A Curious Tale of the In-Between, by Lauren DeStefano

A Curious Tale of the In-Between (Bloomsbury, Sept 1, 2015) is YA author Lauren DeStefano's middle grade debut, and it is a good one!

Pram was orphaned before she was even born when her mother killed herself.  Her mother's body was found before it was too late for Pram, and so she was taken in by her aunts, determined to protect her as they hadn't been able to do for her mother.  The aunts named her Pragmatic, in a hopeful wish for future grounded-ness in reality, and homeschooled her in the home for the aged that they ran.

But Pram's reality was not that of her aunts, because Pram could see ghosts, even the ghosts of insects.  Her only real friend was a ghost boy named Felix, and that was enough.  But her somewhat isolated peace was shattered when she was 12, and her aunts could no longer fight the command from Authority that Pram attend regular school....and that's when the story really gets going

At school, Pram becomes friends with Clarence, who's own mother recently died.  His desire to make contact with her again leads the two of them to the attention of a medium, who senses Pram's ability to see ghosts.  The medium wants to use Pram's powers for her own sinister purposes...and the story takes a dark turn toward supernatural evil when Pram is kidnapped.

But though there are horrific elements, and times of great tension (making for vigerous page-turning), Pram, with her goodness of heart and essential calm, serves as an anchor keeping the book from being too dark.  This is a book for those who enjoy stories of unlikely friendships, kids learning about who they are (in Pram's case, this involves learning about her parents, as well as learning about what she herself is capable of as friend to both the living and the dead; in Felix's case, it involves gathering the strength to move on from his life as a ghost, and in Clarence's case, it means dealing with his mother's death) and, most obviously,  it's one for those who like ghosts as people, not just as spectral menaces!

It is really rather charming, and very gripping, not least because Pram is a dear.

Review copy received from the publisher.

Ghosts of War: The Secret of Midway, by Steve Watkins

Ghosts of War: The Secret of Midway, by Steve Watkins (Scholastic, December 2014, middle grade) is ghost story with bonus exciting history lesson, so much so that instead of leaving the book at my mother's as planned I am going to take it back home and try to get my picky 14 year old history buff to read it.

Anderson is cleaning out a  basement room full of junk below his uncle's antique shop to make a practice place for his new band--himself, his best friend Steve, and (with mixed feelings on Anderson's part), a not-quite friend named Julie.   There in an old trunk he finds a peacoat from WW II--and when the coat is brought out, the ghost of its owner appears.   William Foxwell, a young sailor who died in the war, needs help remembering what happened to him, and so the three kids begin to unravel just who he was, and how he died.  An old letter in the pocket is the first clue...

And in the meantime, the three of them deal with grief from objectionable elements at school, the bond between them is strengthened, and Anderson tries not to talk to much to the ghost when other people are around....

Always eager to become more educated through pleasure reading, I truly appreciated the history contained in this story--I'd only had a vague impression of the Battle of Midway before, but now I know so much more about it's importance, and the sadness of it.  William's story didn't have a happy ending (he's a ghost, after all), and it's fascinating to find out just what happened to him.   The balance of historical detection and real world issues (the bully at school, Steve's borderline abusive dad, Anderson's mom having MS, Julie becoming less prickly) is well done.    I also appreciated the fact that solving the mystery meant asking men and women who were actually alive back then what had happened, and listening to their stories--it's nice to see the experiences of older generations appreciated.  And a final thing I appreciated was that the tone of the book was not anti-Japan--for instance, Julie's dad is Japanese, and through her family back there they are able to hear from a Japanese officer expressing regret for the last bit of William's sad story.

So in any event, like I said, I'll be offering it to my distressingly difficult reader--it's fairly short (191 pages) and it's a fast read, and I think he'll enjoy the combination of ghost, mystery, and history.  

note--although Julie is half-Japanese, she's not quite enough of a main character for me to put this one on my multicultural spec. fic. list.  Maybe in subsequent books in the series (which I look forward to reading) she will be less a side-kick and more central....

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Reading the TBR pile--The Museum House Ghosts, by Judith Spearing, and progress update

So I have spent the last few days at my mother's house, helping her over a bad attack of gout, and as a result I broke my TBR vow of no new library books or purchases in order to read Beating Gout: a Sufferer's Guide to Living Pain Free, which was not as helpful as one might like (how big a serving of sprats is one being warned against? does anyone actually eat sprats anyway?).   And I picked up a free book while I was getting the gout book from the library, which resulted in some intellectual gymnastics--"shelves of free books are really pretty much shelves of tbr books that just haven't been moved into one's own home????" or possibly "if I read this one while at my mother's and lend it to a friend down here it doesn't count for reasons."   It's sloppy thinking like this that got me into the tbr hole I'm in today....But I had to take this one (Summer of the Zeppelin) because it seemed a very Charlotte-ish book--English girl in WW I finds abandoned house and wants to live in it (it was pretty good).   Apart from that little slip, things are going reasonably well-- 16 books from the TBR pile have been read in 2015.  

One of these was The Museum House Ghosts, by Judith Spearing (1969), and if you are in the mood for the sort of high jinx that occur when a family of ghosts decide to try to pass as living people you might do worse.  It is the sequel to Ghosts Who Went to School (shown at right; I couldn't find a picture of Museum House Ghosts on-line)  in  which two ghost boys decide to make friends among the living.   I brought this one home from my own library's discard pile several years ago because I liked the premise--the ghost family (parents and the two boys)  are going to be the caretakers of their own home that's being turned into a history museum.  

 I myself could have used rather more "how do you make a house into a museum" and less "ghosts go shopping" and "ghosts play ball", but the family were pleasantly amusing, and the little episodes of interaction with the living were just fine.  And I appreciated the humorous challenges faced by the ghosts with regard to modernity.   Interestingly, it's the only book I know of in which ghosts eat for good purpose--it takes energy for them to become substantial enough to look alive, and food is required......And it was nice that so many members of the community were open to having neighbors who were otherly living.

But still, more museum, less Fun, and I would have liked it more.

Progress summary:  This one was one I chose from the TBR challenge at Roof Beam Reader, so 11 more to go for that.   84 to go for the  TBR Double Dog Dare at James Read Books.

Pureheart, by Cassandra Golds

Sometimes books are just too sad for me, and the reading of them is just like pulling the covers of someone else's misery over my own life, and even if I can appreciate the characters and the writing and the descriptions, it doesn't make me feel any better.   This was my reaction to Pureheart, by Cassandra Golds (2013, Penguin Books Australia).  

And there were no beautiful rainbows of warm snugginess at the end to cast a glow on all the sadness that had come before.

In essence, this is the story of how a grandmother who hates with passionate intensity uses that hatred to chain her granddaughter Deirdre to her--using cruelty, expert psychological manipulation, and occult horror.  Deirdre is trapped in the crumbling, insane old apartment building where departing tenants are never replaced until it is just her and her grandmother and all the stories of the miseries of the grandmother's life...and she has been so expertly molded with guilt and ignorance that she cannot believe that there is anything else in the world.

Except.   There is a boy, a cousin, who came to visit when she was five, and who she met again when they were twelve....and they love each other.   But the boy, Gal (short for Galahad), is hated by the grandmother who forces their love to be a strange and stifled thing.  Gal wants, desperately, to rescue Deirdre, but she is so tightly chained that she cannot believe it can happen.

Then the grandmother dies, and Deirdre drifts on alone in the old crumbling building....and Gal comes to find her.   But the grandmother is still there, as a ghost, and the Gal and Deirdre are caught in a fun-house of horror as she forces her memories of bitter sorrow and rage on them.

There is one memory that both know they have lost, one thing that could save them, maybe.  If they can find it before everything crumbles around them, and if Deirdre can choose life...

So if you like dark, creepy, horribly sad psychological manipulation with a magical twist and an awful, cruel, rabbit death, this is the book for you!!!!  You will admire the way layer after layer of twisted guilt and warped memories pile on, the way past and present are obscured and twisted in the narrative, the way the empty halls of the vast building lead nowhere, except when they are leading to dark secrets.

I myself just wanted Gal and Deirdre to be happy, maybe with new rabbits to care for in some sunny place far away...

So nope, not a book for me! BUT!  others have chimed in in the comments saying they loved it, including Katherine Langrish whose review is here so your reaction may be very different from mine....

Twin Spell, aka Double Spell, by Janet Lunn, for Timeslip Tuesday

Twin Spell, aka Double Spell in its most recent edition, by Janet Lunn (1969), for Timeslip Tuesday

Twelve-year old twins Elizabeth and Jane didn't particularly want an old wooden doll....but something drew them to the shop where it was housed one wet day, and something drew the owner to let them have it for what loose change they had in their pockets.

And something made Aunt Alice fall down the stairs of the big ancestral home in which she lived alone soon after....resulting in her moving out, and Elizabeth and Jane's family (they are blessed (?) with three brothers).

And then the little doll is used by something, or someone, to draw Elizabeth and Jane into an old, sad, angry story.  Visions of the past over a hundred years ago, when the doll was new, are intruding into their reality, straining their relationship with each other and compelling them to find out what happened to the girl who's doll it was...and the force behind the visions is not friendly (cue creepy music).

But mostly it isn't all that creepy--it's more like a mystery to be solved with the help of supernatural nudges (primarily visions of the past, overlaying the present, as opposed to actual visits to the past), and daily life goes on, broken by trips to the library and hunts for old houses etc.  Until the end, that is, which is rather intense (in a nicely scary way!).

Give this one to a young reader (I'd say an eight year old girl who's reading a bit above her age) who a. likes creepy doll stories  b. likes books in which past and present intersect and c. likes old house stories or d.  hasn't read any of these yet but who you feel might like them.  It's not great (it dragged a bit in the middle, when progress on mystery unravelling stalled, and it's not the best described old house), and if you have already read lots of this story, you don't need to read this one.  That being said, I didn't mind reading it all, and it would probably have thrilled eight-year-old me.  It's one of those books that has lots of five star Amazon reviews from people who read and re-read it as children...

Aside:  as a time travel book this one is rather interesting in that there is both time-slippiness and ghost.  Mostly ghosts just manifest independently (and not as time travelers, but as, you know, lingering dead people), but here the supernatural force at work is really pulling Elizabeth and Jane back toward the past....I think this is the first in two hundred or so time travel books I've labeled as both "Timeslip Tuesday" and "books with ghosts."

The Children of the King, by Sonya Hartnett

Sometimes I read a book and am stunned by its kid appeal, and other times I read a book and want to urge other grown-ups to read it, and this is not a judgment of book goodness or lack thereof, but simply how the story feels to me.   Falling firmly into this later category is The Children of the King, by Sonya Hartnett (Candlewick, March 2014 in the US).

One the face of it, it seems like a book young me would have loved, back in the day (for starters, the cover art is total eye candy for the romantic young girl).  Cecily, her older brother Jeremy, and their mother leave London during WW II, retreating to the old family home deep in the countryside of northern England.  There is a bonus additional child, an interesting little girl, taken in along the way.  There is the crumbling old castle on the edge of the estate, that holds secrets of a mysterious past; Uncle Peregrine tells the children its story, which involves Richard III, and does so most grippingly.  There is a strong element of fantasy, lifting it all out of the ordinary.  And the writing is lovely, with pleasing descriptions of food and bedrooms and the books in the library (three things I like to read about).

But yet it felt more like a book for adults, and I'm not at all sure young me would have found it entirely pleasing.

For one thing, Cecily, whose point of view we share, is ostensibly a twelve year old, but she acts much younger, and is thoughtless, somewhat unintelligent, and not really a kindred spirit.  The way she behaves is all part of a convincingly drawn character, but it is not an appealing one.   May, the younger evacuee, is much more interesting, but she is off at a distance from the reader.   I think young readers expect to like the central character; Cecily felt to me like a character in a book for grown-ups, where there is no such expectation.  Likewise, the dynamics among the family (and May), strained by the war, involve lots of undercurrents of tension that are complicated and disturbing.

For another thing, and this gets a tad spoilery, it is clear pretty early on that the two boys Cecily and May meet in the ruined castle are from another time, and what with the title being what it is, anyone who knows the story of Richard III can put the pieces together (it will, of course, take longer for the child reader who has No Clue).   But these two boys aren't directly players in the story taking place in the present, nor does the fact of their existence bring about obvious change.  They are more like ghost metaphors or something and the book would have a coherent story (though a less lovely one) without them, and so they disappointed me.  These sorts of ghost aren't  exactly what I expect in a book for children, but I'd love to talk to a grown-up about them!  And this ties in with a more general feeling I had, that I was being expected to Think Deeply and Make Connections, and I almost feel that I should now be writing an essay on "Power and Metaphor in The Children of the King."

So, the upshot of my reading experience was that I appreciated the book just fine, but wasn't able to love it with the part of mind that is still, for all intents and purposes, eleven years old. 

Here are other reviews, rather more enthusiastic:

The Children's War
Waking Brain Cells
The Fourth Musketeer

I've reviewed one other book by Sonya Hartnett --The Silver Donkey (it was one of my very early reviews, back in 2007).  I seem to have appreciated that one more, but it amused me that I had something of the same reaction to the stories within the story:  "I'm not a great fan of interjected stories in general, because I resent having the narrative flow broken, and also because I feel challenged by them. The author must have put them in for Deep Reasons, I think, and will I be clever enough to figure out what they were?"

The Ghost Prison, by Joseph Delaney

The Ghost Prison is an illustrated novella from Joseph Delaney, author of the Spook's Apprentice series, perfect for horror loving readers of 11 or so who are looking for a nice, fast, spooky read.

15-year-old Billy rushes through the night-time streets on the way to his first job in the old castle prison, home to murderers, witches, and...ghosts.   His head is full of fearsome stories, but he reassures himself that as a guard, and not a prisoner, he'll be just fine.  And the money he earns will get him clear of the Home for Unfortunate Boys, and set him on a path to better things.

But then the prison overseer assigns to him the feeding of whoever, or whatever, is held down in the dark depths in the Witch Well....and Billy fails to follow the most basic rule of jail-keeping--"never leave your key in the lock."  With most unpleasant consequence...

At only 92 pages of story, plus 2 of epilogue, most of which are heavily illustrated in lots of lovely black and white detail by Scott M. Fischur, this is a quick read--which makes it excellent for the uncertain reader.   And the story is full enough of ghostly horror to keep any reader's attention, and the twist at the end was truly gripping.  For the faster reader, there might be some disappointment that there's not more to it, but that's the faster reader's problem, not the book's.

Warning:  The ending is really truly horrible horror, so not for the faint of heart.   Young, sensitive me might well have been disturbed by both the pictures and the story, but I would have read it anyway.

Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher for Cybils review consideration. 

A Sound of Crying, aka House in the Wood, by Rodie Sudbery, for Timeslip Tuesday

Today's Timeslip Tuesday book is an oldie but goodie--A Sound of Crying, by Rodie Sudbery.  It was first published in the UK in 1968 as House in the Wood, and published with the new title in the US in 1970 by Scholastic (with biscuits changed to cookies; sigh), and it's just right for 9-12 year olds, and I am cross I didn't find it back when I was that age.  It is one of those books that teeters between ghost story and time slip, but since the main character does travel to the past to witness the events that transpired (albeit in her dreams), I'm going with time slip.

Polly and her younger siblings did not want their mother to be ill, and did not want to be dumped on their aunt and uncle and cousin Frederick while she got better.  Frederick did not want them either; he wanted his peaceful life as a young scientist (poor kids today--no mercury to play with) to be unbroken.   But it happens, and if you are going to be dumped on relations, it is nice when they live in an old house at the edge of a wood....

It is not so nice when Polly hears the sound of ghostly crying.   And in the night, the dreams come, taking her back to the life of Sarah, a orphaned girl who lived in the house many years ago, who was a virtual slave to her insanely miserly uncle.  Polly is a passive observer in the past, horrified by Sarah's unhappiness,  and her life in the present is haunted by the story she's witnessing.  At last the dreams lead her to the point where Sarah's life changed dramatically, and Polly can finally convince her family that there is physical proof that Sarah's story was real.

It's a lovely mix of the supernatural and the everyday, with plenty of good family dynamics, a lovely setting, and an intriguing mystery in which the past spills over into the present.  As the story progresses, Frederick relaxes away from serious scientist who doesn't have room for fun into the good companion he used to be, and although the younger children are only lightly sketched, they serve their narrative functions just fine.   Even if you don't like ghost/time travel stories, do try this one if you like 1960s/70s English family stories.    I was very excited to learn that there are sequels, although they apparently have no supernatural elements.

Clearly I should have been following my little sister's reading on Goodreads more closely.  The reason I got this from the library is that she asked for the fifth book in the series, Warts and All, for Christmas; I'm not quite sure why she hadn't shared these books with me more directly (perhaps she thoughtfully didn't wish to burden my TBR pile).   I am even sadder now that the cheap copy of Warts and All I managed to fine was "damaged" in handling and was no longer saleable.  I suspect the seller had a change of heart viz the price. 

However, if you live in Rhode Island, you can at least read this one, which I am about to return to the library.

Question:  though the book is over forty years old, it did not feel especially dated to me (possibly because I am too), and there was no  instance in which a cell phone would have made a huge difference to the plot.   But do  you suppose modern young readers, so used to their electronics, would notice the complete absence of any electronics and feel that they were truly deep in the dark,dark past? 

The Year of Shadows, by Claire Legrand

This has been an excellent year for middle grade ghosts books, and The Year of Shadows, by Claire Legrand (Simon and Schuster, Aug. 2013, middle grade), is by no means the least of these, which is to say I liked it lots.

Olivia is angry, scared, and miserable.  After her mother left, things feel apart, and now she and her father, and her grandmother, are stuck living in the backstage rooms of a decrepit concert hall.  Her father (distant, depressed, unkempt and unhelpful) still dreams of leading his orchestra to heights of fame and financial stability, but Olivia doesn't want any part of her father's hope--she's too busy blaming him for her miserable circumstances (with some reason).

Then she realizes that on top of everything else, the hall is haunted.   And some of the spirits are friendly ghosts, who need her help to pass fully into death, and some are chaotic forces that bring danger to both ghost and girl.   With the help of two classmates who practically force friendship at prickly Olivia, she begins to help the ghosts...a scary process that involves letting them into her mind, so that she can share their memories. 

But in the meantime, the concert hall is literally falling down, and time is running out for both the ghosts, and for Olivia's family.

And once again, I embarrassed myself by sniveling on the bus ride home.  And once again, I realize while writing about a book that it had illustrations--quite nice and atmospheric ones--that utterly passed me by because I was so busy with the words.   Which I guess is a compliment.  (I am very sorry, illustrator Karl Kwasny.  I did notice the cover though, and like it lots, as do my target-audience boys).

So in any event, it's a rather dark book, but not so dark as to render the reader melancholy for any length of time.  One must bravely soldier on (at the beginning, in particular) through depressing bleakness, but gradually, as the story builds in complexity and more characters and twists of plot and zesty little details are added, it all gets lighter (though never what one would really call light)...and crescendos with a big emotional burst.  (At which point I give up fighting against musical metaphor, because after all musical metaphors are woven into the book--the program of orchestral music for each month is very deliberately chosen by the author!).   By the end there have been friendships made, and Olivia and her father are on track to build a better relationship (although I think he will always be a weak read as far as parenting is concerned....he has a habit of putting the music first) and things are better for the ghosts and stuff (that's me avoiding a spoiler).

So, if I had a slightly Gothically leaning 11 or 12 year old girl who played the violin* on hand, I would leap to press the book into her hands.   But anyone who enjoys a good ghost story, in which grimness is mixed nicely with both dead and living warmth, might very well want to give this one a try.

Disclaimer:  review copy received from the publisher for Cybils consideration

*because that's how I hear Olivia's theme; no offense to other instruments intended....although now I'm thinking maybe she's clarinet...tricky....

Lockwood and Co.: The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud

Lockwood and Co.: The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud (Disney-Hyperion, upper Middle Grade, September 17, 2013)

In an alternate England, something (not explained yet) went awry, and the country is plagued by ghosts.  Ghosts who can kill, which makes them especially troublesome.  Fortunately, they can be dispatched by those with the proper equipment and training (as shown on the cover).  Kids can see the ghosts better than grown-ups...and so they are the combatants in the front line of ghost hunting, which, of course, means that grown-ups can exploit them.   And replace them when the ghosts kill them.

But Lockwood and Co. is a different sort of ghost-hunting business.  Anthony Lockwood, still young enough to see ghosts himself, runs his own company.  And  when Lucy Carlyle, down her luck after her previous employment went sour in a deadly way, knocks on the door, he gives her a job.   Supported by a third teen, the somewhat nerdy George (the research arm of the organization), Lockwood and Co. is ready to take the ghost hunting world by storm...

Except that things go wrong.  Burning down a house by accident may be a surefire way to get rid of haunted room, but it's expensive.  To pay of the debt incurred after that mischance, Lockwood and Co. agree to take on the ghosts of one of the most haunted houses in England...a place that can kill a ghost hunting kid, no matter how smart or well-prepared he or she might be.

So that's more or less the set-up, but it doesn't doesn't do justice to the adventures of ghost hunting and all the details of the world-building and the near-death experiences and restless hauntings and old murder mystery etc.!

It's mainly Lucy's story--she's the newcomer to Lockwood and Co., and we meet the two boys through her, and what is especially great is that we don't know any more about them than she does, and it is clear that there is just tons more to them than we see in this first book!   The reader is given a chance to think and wonder, and I appreciated that.   I enjoyed their company, too--they are smart, and sarcastic, and more vulnerable than they'd like to think they are....

So great characters, great premise, exciting ghosts and I Cannot Wait till the next book, when more about the very charming Anthony Lockwood, and more about the geekily appealing George, might be revealed! We already know Lucy pretty well, but I'm curious about how her relationships with the boys might change...

Note on age of reader:  the ghosts are scary, the blood is bloody, and the deaths are real.  I'm not giving this one to my ten year old...maybe next year, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to third or fourth graders.  But it definitely feels more Middle Grade than YA--it's plucky kids taking on the grown-up world, rather than teens becoming grown-ups and finding luv.  Give this one to a smart eleven- or twelve-year-old who likes a bit of violent supernatural gore, or the reader who likes zesty mysteries and intelligent writing, and who can tolerate supernatural gore, or some combination of the two.

I was a pretty appreciative reader myself  (mostly because of being really interested in the characters).  Leila was too--here's her post at Kirkus.

Reviewed from an ARC procured for me at ALA by Anamaria of Books Together, to whom I am very grateful.

The House on Parchment Street, by Patricia McKillip (a middle grade ghost story)

Patricia McKillip is known these days (although perhaps known not quite well enough) for her gorgeous adult fantasy novels, full of beautiful words and worlds. But the first book* she published was not one of those.  Instead, The House on Parchment Street (1973) is a ghost story for 10-13 year old kids, and it's a good one (with reservations beyond the hideous original cover--what was it about the 1970s that made mustard yellow so popular?).

Carol has been sent to stay with relatives in England for a month to expand her young mind.   Her aunt and uncle welcome her to the old house on Parchment Street, but the tough boys her cousin Bruce hangs out with are enough to make her want to go back home almost immediately.   And then, down in the cellar of the house, Carol sees a ghost--a man in black, disappearing through the wall.  When Carol finds that Bruce has seen this ghost too they become allies in solving a mystery from the English Civil War. 

That's the bare bones, as it were, of the ghost part--it's a fine ghost story, nicely creepy, with gradual realizations and historical clues allowing the kids to figure out what happened back in the past, and culminating in an exciting and dangerous discovery.

But the ghost part of the book is interwoven with the contemporary story of prickly friendships, the dynamic between Bruce and his father, Carol's experiences as an awkward stranger in a strange place--lots of character development, in other words.   This realistic part of the book almost overshadows the ghost story; the ghosts never get to be people, as it were, but instead seem to be there to give events in the real world a focus.  We don't actually find out the historical particulars of what happened, just the general outline of what happened.  This bothered me as child--I wanted to know more about the mysterious girl from the past (we never learn her name!) and I think I only ever read it once, despite being a young anglophile, because of being vexed by this.

I did, however, enjoy my recent re-read--the place, the people, the story were all satisfying; at this point in my life I am perhaps less dependent on supernatural gratification for my reading enjoyment!  I'd recommend this one, then, not so much to the ghost story lover, but to those who enjoy the old-fashioned sort of lonely girl in a strange place stories, if you know what I mean!

*Possibly this is her second published book.  The Throme of the Erril of Sherril came out the same year...

Rules for Ghosting, by A. J. Paquette

Rules for Ghosting, by A.J. Paquette (Bloomsbury, July, 2013) is an utterly just fine book to give to a seven to ten year-old who likes ghosts and big old houses.

Oliver and his family have moved to a big old house with a spooky reputation; they'll live there for six months as caretakers while its fixed up for sale (while, the owner hopes, adding a gloss of happy family normalcy to its reputation).   Dahlia has lived in this same house since she was a girl around Oliver's age (11 ish), although for most of the time she's been dead.  And it's been lonely for Dahlia--the house has been empty since her mother left for a nursing home, and she herself can't go anywhere.  

The same day that Oliver's family arrives, so does Mrs. Tibbs, a friendly official ghost come to liberate Dahlia, and teach her the rules of ghosting that will help her move on.    But hard on Mrs. Tibbs' heels comes a ghost-hunter, passing himself off as a repair man.  When his ghost capturing mechanism actually works on Mrs. Tibbs, Dahlia must manifest herself to Oliver and his siblings, working with them foil the ghost hunter's unpleasant plans...while still trying to find out what is anchoring her own ghost to the old house.

Told in chapters alternating between Oliver and Dahlia, it's full of busy ghostly old house fixing-up shenanigans, and rather fun, full of nicely created little descriptive elements that add interest.  Though it's not one I'd press on grown-ups, the intended audience should enjoy it lots.  

Pause while I consider if the intended audience skews toward one gender or another.... My heart says it is more a girl book, perhaps because I myself (a girl) would have enjoyed it when I was seven, and perhaps because the book starts with Dahlia making a garden of ghost flowers, which stereotypically and superficially feels  more like a "girl" thing.  However, a rational argument can also be made that there is boy appeal- Oliver is, after all, a boy, and the whole mechanics and technology of ghost hunting have (also stereotypically and superficially) boy appeal.    

Final answer: not a book with a strong tilt toward any particular gender.  

Note on age, which is also hard because 7-10 year olds vary so much in their expectations--the plot is complex enough for the higher end, but not to intense for the younger end.  That being said, I think this is an especially good one for the avid 7 year old devourer of books.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher