Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 5-6. A ghost story extraordinaire is one way to bring on the chills and tingles of Halloween. Another choice, more closely tied to the holiday, is Ray Bradbury's Halloween Tree, where some children travel through time to learn the origins of the festivities.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-Mary Downing Hahn's haunting tale (Clarion, 1986) is the story of 12-year-old Molly, her 10-year-old brother Michael, and stepsister Heather, a 5-year-old brat. Molly and her family move to the country to live in a converted church in the middle of nowhere. Their home comes with its own graveyard (complete with a grave the caretaker has never noticed before) as well as an old burned-down husk of a house. Even worse, tales and sightings of unexplained beings have been told behind closed doors for years by the residents. Helen, a sinister ghost, lures Heather from her family with claims of eternal friendship and happiness, and it's up to Heather to rescue her. Ellen Grafton's voicing of Molly and the other characters is spot-on. This eerie, sinister, powerful tale will entrance listeners.- Amy Olson, formerly Lexington Public Library, KY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An unusually scary, well-crafted ghost fantasy. Twelve-year-old Molly, 10-year-old brother Michael, and their artist mother, Jean, move into an isolated renovated country-church with Jean's new husband, Dave, and his disturbed seven-year-old daughter, Heather, whose mother died four years earlier in a fire that almost claimed Heather, too. There is a graveyard on the property; in a twinkling, Heather is possessed by the ghost of Helen, a child who, with her mother and stepfather, died in a fire in 1880. Molly decides to save Heather: Helen is trying to lure her into the pond where two other children have drowned. Then Molly discovers Heather's secret--she accidentally set the fire that killed her mother--and gets her to tell Dave. Heather's health is thereby restored, and the stepfamily is healed, but not before the malevolent Helen does some damage. Helen's ghost finds peace only when her mother materializes and forgives her; Helen, too, had set a fatal fire. Exciting for children comfortable with the genre, but the ghost activity is serious and chilling, involving a sensitive, intelligent heroine who believes in ghosts and wonders about death and what happens after it. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
