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The Haunting of Nathaniel Wolfe, by Brian Keaney (Hodder & Stoughton, April 1, 2012, middle grade, 240 pages).

On a smoky, foggy, fetid March evening in Victorian London, young Nathaniel is engaged in his usual occupation--selling tickets to his father's show, one that promises that the dead will speak from beyond the grave. The audience is desperate to receive news of their departed loved ones (or not so loved ones), but Nathaniel knows it's all trickery. But even though his father spends the bulk of the money drinking, at least it keeps a roof over their heads....

But then the unexpected happens.

"Up there on the stage beside his father was a shadow, a shape, blurred at first but becoming clearer with every passing moment until finally he was looking at the figure of a woman, dressed in a long white robe. Her eyes were the palest blue and they were fixed directly on him. With every fibre of his being he knew her for what she was: a ghost."

And so Nathaniel finds himself unwilling drawn into a dark mystery as he tries to find out just what this ghost wants....and how she died.

He's not alone in his quest--a new friend named Lily, a plucky servant girl, has her own part to play in solving the mystery. But as Lily and Nathaniel come closer to figuring out what happened to the dead woman, their own lives become at risk. Murderers don't always stop at just one victim....

This was a very satisfying murder mystery for young readers--I guessed a key aspect of the plot early (because of having read the right Dorothy Sayers) but that didn't keep me from being enthralled by Nathaniel and Lily's adventures. Although my credulity was a tad stretched toward the end, when Queen Victoria made an appearance, the mystery itself unfolded very nicely, and I was quite anxious on behalf of Nathaniel and Lily. Nathaniel in particular is a character for whom I found it easy to care--his life is of neglect and poverty, yet he manages to keep going bravely (without being annoyingly Plucky) .

The book might perhaps be hard sell for young readers who aren't drawn to historical fiction, but once the ghost starts haunting Nathaniel in earnest, the pace picks up. I think it's one where the cover will do a good job of sorting out the readers who will like it from those that won't, in as much at it's a cover of historical, spooky atmosphere, as opposed to a cover of Exciting Adventure. It's certainly one to offer any kid looking for a good ghost story, and I'd recommend it in particular to fans of Avi's historical fiction, or perhaps, moving in the other direction, to readers of The Wolves of Whilloughby Chase, by Joan Aiken, who found the farcical fun of that book a bit over the top, but enjoyed the historical mystery.

Here's another review, at Serendipity Reviews

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

Poor Tom's Ghost, by Jane Louise Curry (Atheneum, 1977, 178 pages)

Thirteen year old Roger pinned great hopes on the old house near London his Aunt Deb left his father. He imagined that it would actually be a home--for years his life has been full of uncertain strain, as his actor father Tony moved restlessly from place to place. Roger hopes that having a house of their own will make his stepmother Jo, his little step-sister, Pippa, Tony, and himself, into a safe, secure, family with a place to belong. But when they see that Aunt Deb's house is a stuccoed monstrosity that's barely habitable, his hopes fade.

Then the family set to work, ripping off strips of sagging wallpaper, tearing out moldering paneling...and gradually they unveil the Elizabethan house that had had been hidden for years. And other, darker, secrets begin to surface too.

Roger is awakened on his first night by the wild grief of restless ghost. Tom Garland, an actor at the Globe Theatre, haunts the house...and as the days pass, his spirit begins to merge with Roger's father, Tony. Tony's performance of Hamlet reach a new level of wonderful authenticity, but the dark side of Tom Garland's story threatens to shatter Roger's hopes for peace in the present.

Gradually Roger himself finds himself drawn into the past, to 1603, living within Tom's younger brother as a centuries-old tragedy is played out in plague stricken London. Unless Tom can set things right in the past, Tom Garland's ghost will never rest.

This is just quite simply a lovely time travel story. The past comes gradually into the story like an incoming tide...slowly pulling the characters in the present back into time. The ghost story aspects of the present and Roger's experiences back in 1603 are both delightfully spooky and full of tension.

I love just about any old house fixing-up story, and this part of the book was a real treat, but what makes this book stand out is the finely drawn characterization of young Roger. He's a lonely, tense, and apprehensive boy, desperately hoping for peace and stability, and Curry does an excellent job using the events of the past to push Roger (and his family) into a new, safer place.

In short, this is one of those lovely books that I not only would have loved as a child, but enjoyed very much reading for the first time as a grown-up! Although it was written 35 years ago, it doesn't feel dated--Roger's emotions are timeless, and, since the old house has no modern conveniences anyway, they wouldn't have been able to go online and look up its history anyway. Instead they have to look through the parish registry by hand, as it were. (Which makes me wonder how many Elizabethan parish registries are available online....which in turn leads me to wonder if anyone has written a time travel book in which google searches are important).

And now I must go back and re-read The Black Canary, which was a prequel, written several years later, to this one.

Looking for a spooky read to offer an eleven or so year old girl? I just read one I'd recommend--The Girl Behind the Glass, by Jane Kelley (Random House, 2011, ages 9-12, 192 pages).

For years the house on Hemlock Ave. stood empty and decaying. No-one managed to live there for long, and stories were told about green eyes that could sometimes be seen, looking out. Eleven year-old twins Anna and Hannah would have been happy to leave the house to its own devices forever. They had no desire to move into it, but move they must....an event welcomed by the ghost of a long dead girl with whom they share their new home.

Anna settles in nicely at school, but Hannah, in a different class from her sister for the first time ever, remains unhappy, and slowly the girls drift apart. Her unhappiness, and loneliness, makes her the prime target for the ghost, whose anger is as fresh as it was the day she died. But as Hannah unravels the mystery of what happened in the house on Hemlock Ave., the danger she is in grows, and so does the distance between herself and her twin...the ghost does not want to be left alone again.

I truly enjoyed the narrative device of this one. The reader is given both Hannah's point of view, and the perspective of the ghost....gradually and creepily, more and more clues are dropped, and more becomes clear. Because we have the ghost's point of view, it's not desperately scary--it's atmospherically spooky, but subtly so. It's a character-driven ghost story, more a psychosocial thriller rather than one that makes the reader jump with fright, which added to my personal enjoyment of it!

I always feel a tad uncertain reviewing books that have Mysteries in them, because I am both bad at figuring things out, and have a nasty habit of peeking at endings. So I can't speak to whether the mystery here was obvious to the meanest intelligence, or delightfully subtle and carefully constructed. All I can say is that I found it a page turner, and felt it all came together nicely!

(I'm adding this review to the round-up for the RIP IV (Readers Imbibing Peril) challenge, as I think it fits the bill very nicely indeed!)

Double Spell, by Janet Lunn (Tundra Books, 2003, originally published as Twin Spell, back in 1971)

"The twins found the doll on a cold wet Saturday in early spring. They found it in an antique shop, which was odd because neither Jane nor Elizabeth had ever thought of going into an antique shop before. At age twelve, they didn't think much about dolls anymore, either. And yet, on this rainy Saturday morning, they did both" (p 1)

The little old wooden doll calls out to the twins, and acting on a whim she can't explain, the owner of the shop lets the girls have it in exchange for what little money they have on them. When their great aunt decides to turn the large old family house over to the twins' family, they are pleased to think that their doll will have a home worthy of her...and very pleased themselves with their new tower room.

But strange things have entered the girls' lives with the coming of the doll, and the move to the new house. The doll seems to be leading them back into the past...memories that aren't their own are flickering in and out of their everyday lives, and someone, or something, is playing potergeitly tricks on their family. Because long ago, the doll belonged to another little girl...and there are dark secrets from the past waiting to come to light. Time is about to twist for Jane and Elizabeth, and bring the past to the present.

This is the sort of just on the edge of horror story great for the nine-year-old-ish girl. The time-slippishness makes the mystery very intriguing, especially toward the end, when I was reading at the edge of my seat, all feverishly anxious. Of course, being me, I enjoyed the more mundane aspects--moving into the big old house, doing historical research in the library, and making doll clothes--just as much, if not more!

I would have loved this one as a child, and enjoyed it just fine as an adult. Even though it was written forty years ago, Double Spell is not at all dated (there's the dated old cover on the right), and should easily win itself new friends.

Janet Lunn is perhaps best known for another time slip story, The Root Cellar--someday I will be going back to re-read this one for another Timeslip Tuesday!

(thanks, Anamaria of Books Together, for sending this one my way!)

My Mother's Day present this year was The Wild Girls, by Ursula Le Guin (PM Press, 2011), which was, coincidentally, the book I was planning on getting my husband for Father's Day (I've said this before, but I like saying it--when we met, we each had the same book of Ursula's on our bedside tables, and it is in essence a book about creating strong, loving relationships-- Four Ways to Forgiveness. It was as if it were Meant).

So anyway, after he finished reading The Wild Girls, I sat down with it myself.

First up is the titular short story/novella. It is a story of a rigid society, slavery, ghosts, and gender relationships--classic Le Guin stuff. It is blunt, a flung gauntlet of a story, that brings people, and their place, to life while simultaneously forcing the reader to keep stepping out of the story, to question and think.

"As a reward for working," Nata corrected her, always gentle, never scolding. "The Sky Father made the City for his sons, the Crowns. And they reward good workers by letting them live in it. As our owners, Crowns and Roots, reward us for work and obedience by letting us live, and eat, and have shelter."

"Modh did not say, "But-"

"It was perfectly clear to her that it was a system of exchange, and that it was not fair exchange. She came from just far enough outside it to be able to look at it. And, being excluded from reciprocity, any slave can see the system with an undeluded eye But Modh did not know of any other system, any possibility of another system, which would have allowed her to say "But." (pp 29-30).

It might be too didactic for some readers, but her didacticism is something I have always treasured in Le Guin's writing. It is, after all, through reading books like hers that I started trying to say "But" myself.

Moving to lighter things, the reader is then treated to two essays, "Staying Awake While We Read" and "The Conversation of the Modest," both of which are wittily and intelligently trenchant, a small collection of poetry, and an interview.

The interview is the best part of the book!

For example:

Interviewer (Terry Bisson): "What have you got against Amazon?"

UKL: "Nothing, really, except profound moral disapproval of their aims and methods, and a simple loathing of corporate greed." (page 82)

and:

Interviewer: "I'm working on the cover copy for this book right now. Is it Ok if I call our piece on modesty "the single greatest thing ever written on the subject"?"

UKL: "I think "the single finest, most perceptive, most gut-wrenchingly incandescent fucking piece of prose ever not written by somebody called Jonathan something" might be more precise." (page 91)

So anyway, thank you to my husband for this! (and now I have to find him a different book for Father's Day. I'm thinking Embassytown, by China Mieville, which Ursula liked very much)

The Midnight Gate, by Helen Stringer (Feiwel and Friends, 2011, middle grade, 376 pages) is a book I would recommend at the drop of the hat to a young Percy Jackson fan. This isn't something I say lightly with regard to every fantasy quest or adventure book that comes my way, primarily because it's a facile cliche. But that aside, here's what I look for when making such a comparison.

The book has to have a similar story line--the un-ordinary child on a quest, in which the tension gets ratcheted up and up, and monstrous things menace at every turn. It is not hard to find books like this.

But the book also has to have a certain light but effectively used intelligence to it--not just in its writing but also in the richness of its detail, the distinctiveness of its characters. It has to entertain, to make me invested in the characters, to keep me wondering. In short, it has to be a book like The Midnight Gate.

The Midnight Gate is a sequel to Spellbinder, a book I enjoyed very much when it first came out, a book I bet I would have Loved if I'd read it when I was young. Here's what I wrote about it:

"Young Belladonna can see ghosts, and, even though she has to worry about talking to people her classmates can't see, it's a darn good thing that she can. [This is] because, even though her parents are dead, they are still home, taking loving care of her. Then all the ghosts vanish, dragged out of our world. And Belladonna and Steve (a tricksy boy from school, not yet a friend) are off to find out what has happened...even if it means travelling to the land of the dead, where they are pitted against the ominous forces of darkness raised by a wicked alchemist. Lots of ghostly fun, with a mysterious dark dog, the Wild Hunt, and a plucky Edwardian schoolgirl who has haunted the school since a nasty incident on the tennis court, and who keeps a stiff upper lip throughout.

An enthralling new take on the plot of chosen children facing Evil."

So it was with great pleasure that I embarked on Belladonna's continued adventures in The Midnight Gate. Two months have passed since Belladonna first found she was the Spellbinder, and she still has no clear idea what that means, or what she's supposed to do. But a malevolent power is waiting outside our world, gathering strength to enter it once more--and that power has a very clear idea indeed of just how Belladonna can be used to open the way.

Belladonna, with Steve at her side, must solve the clues held in an ancient map given to her by a ghost, find the lost items of power the map gives directions for, and journey from a foster home of great creepiness to the court of the Queen of the Abyss. Then she gets to face the really bad guys.

So. I explained up at the top why I'd recommend this to Percy Jackson fans, or anyone wanting an Exciting Read. I think this sequel one is much more Exciting than its predec

Ninth Ward, by Jewell Parker Rhodes (2010, Little Brown, middle grade on up, 217 pages) is a book that is just plain unequivocally Good, in its writing, its story, its characters, and even in the much more subjective territory of the feelings it left me with.

Lanesha has lived all her twelve years in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans secure in the love of Mama Ya-Ya, the wise old woman who was the midwife at her birth. Her seventeen-year old mother, rejected by her well off family after she became pregnant, died giving birth to her...but she hasn't quite left her daughter. Her ghost still lies there on the bed where, still and unresponsive, still waiting for her baby to be born safely into the world.

Her Mama is just one of many ghost that Lanesha can see. Mama Ya-Ya has raised Lanesha in world where ghosts are just one fact of life, and everything around them--magnolia flowers, birds, numbers--has a meaning that transcends the quotidian. Despite being as poor as can be money-wise, Mama YaYa given Lanesah a childhood that is just about the warmest, most tenderly-drawn fictional childhood I can think of. Lanesha's suffered through a lot of teasing--crazy, spooky, and witch are some of the things she's called by the other kids. But when it gets too much, and she hides in the bathroom, she thinks of Mama YaYa's words--"'You are loved, Lanesha,' she always says. 'Lanesha, you are loved'" (page 22).

Lanesha might not have any friends at school, but she loves it all the same. She learns everything the teachers can give her (she dreams of being an engineer, and designing bridges, and her teacher, incidentally, is a gem). This school year looks like it might be different, though--there are promising signs that Lanesha will make friends, with both a neighbor boy, TaShon, and a girl in her class. All seems to be going gloriously well.

But reading this happy part of the book, and falling hard for Lanesha and Mama Ya-Ya, and their diverse and vibrant community, brought cold chills, and made me want to cry for the pity of it. Because I knew it was all a fragile soap bubble, about to pop-- it is late August of 2005, and Hurricane Katrina is forming off to the east. The Ninth Ward is doomed, and the courage and determination of Lanesha and TaShon are about to be put to a test that no child should have to undergo.

Now the book becomes a gripping story of children on their own, facing the possibility that there will be no rescue, facing the reality that they will have to save themselves. The great adventure-type of story, where ordinary kids are heros, and must do extraordinary things...

Gosh, it was a good. Brilliant in its characters, vivid with regard to place, gripping in its story. It's my pick for the Newbery this year.

Here's an interview with Jewell Parker Rhodes at Through the Tollbooth, and one at TheHappyNappyBookseller.

(And now I am wondering the following. This book deserves to be nominated for the Cybils Awards. The choice is straight middle grade fiction, or fantasy. It isn't straight mid

The House of Dead Maids, by Clare B. Dunkle (Henry Holt, 2010, YA, 160 pages) is a gripping Gothic story, full of chills and darkness and lowering evil coming ever closer.

Tabby Aykroyd's eleven years as an unwanted orphan were spent at the mercy of various cooks and housekeepers in great houses, until a stroke of luck got her a place at Ma Hutton's knitting school. But when a cold and mysterious woman arrives to pick one of Ma Hutton's girls to be a nursemaid at a great house on the edge of the moors, Tabby's luck seems not so lucky after all.

Because Seldom House holds horrible secrets.

In all its long dusty corridors and countless rooms, there are only six living people--Tabby, the Miss Winter, who had chosen her, the cook, the coachman/groundskeeper, and a visiting gentleman (in the loosest sense of the term). The sixth is the little boy with whom Tabby is charged; a wild and heathen thing, who doesn't know his own name, but who is apparently the master of the house. A boy who will grow up to be known as Heathcliff (of Wuthering Heights fame).

But Seldom House is not as empty as it seems. Tabby is haunted by the ghost of the maid before her-- a cold, wet thing who will not leave her be. And as she and the boy explore the house and grounds, other ghosts--horrible ghosts--appear. A legion of dead maids (and masters)...who are waiting for Tabby and her young charge to join them.

"The dead hold no terrors for me. I have watched by the beds of those who have passed on, comforted by their sorrowless repose. But this little maid was a ghastly thing, all the more horrible because she stood before me. It wasn't the pallid hue of her grimy face that shocked me, or her little gray hands and feet. It was the holes where her eyes should have been, great round sockets of shadow." (page 24)

And this is what has been trying to crawl into bed with Tabby every night since her arrival....

The House of Dead Maids is a relatively short book, which works in its favor, allowing it to pack its punch in a more concentrated way. Dunkle does a wonderful job creating the world of Seldom House, in prose that evokes the writing of the Brontes without being drowned by archaic floridness. And although "subtle" isn't the word I'd choose to describe the legions of the dead that populate the story (things got just a teeny bit over the top for me at the end), Dunkle manages to disturb quite disturbingly (the villagers, in particular, are tremendously creepy...).

What made the book work for me, though, is the tension between Tabby's character and the circumstances in which she has found herself. Tabby's strong faith and strong character, her conviction that the world has a proper order, are a very nice contrast to both the savage, self-centered indifference of young Heathcliff, and the pit of horror into which she has fallen. She is not just a passive describer, but a solid presence who fully occupied her designated space as the one real, sane, character in the whole disasterous mess!

Tabby Aykroyd went on, in real life, to become housekeeper to the Bronte family...and, as Dunkle tells it, fascinated young Emily in particular with the dark stories she told.

Not recommended to the young reader prone to nightmares, but

Light Beneath Ferns, by Anne Spollen (Flux, 2010, YA, 206 pages) *more spoilerish than my reviews usually are*

Elizah, telling the story of what happened to her that fall, begins with finding a bone at the edge of a graveyard. The graveyard is Elizah's new home--her mother has taken her to New York, to the small town where she had lived when she was a girl. She is the new caretaker of a historical cemetery, looking desperately to make a New Start. And Elizah is the new girl in the local school, a girl who does not want to talk to anyone. A girl who is happiest left alone in silence...because what, really, is she supposed to say? Her father, a compulsive gambler wanted by the law, has skipped out on them, and now she's supposed to start a new life....

Then she finds a bone, coming out of the mud at the edge of a river. Fascinated by bones, she brings it home....and realizes that it is human, and keeps it, safely shut away in her room...

At home and at school, she is pressured to be Normal. To be friendly, and even encouraging, to the other girls and to a boy who fancies her. But exploring off by herself by the river, she meets someone she thinks could be a real friend--a boy named Nathaniel, who seems to live outside the everyday world. A charismatic boy more real to her than anyone else in her life, he takes her upriver with him, showing her the strange world in which he lives...and gradually unfolds to her, as fall changes to winter, the reason he has sought out her company.

It is not that hard (even for a reader as un-thinking when reading as myself) to guess pretty quickly that Nathaniel and the bone that Elizah is keeping are somehow connected....yet even though it is easy to see where the plot is going, Elizah's beautifully drawn life as a rather desperate introvert, trying to make sense of difficult things, carries the story to its moving conclusion.

As paranormal romances go, it is subtle and understated, as the title, Light Beneath Ferns, suggests--small glimpses of strange and magical things, filtered through reality. Recommended to those who like their ghosts magically other, rather than front and center, and to those in the mode for a romance more along the lines of things that dreams are made of, rather than the blatant wish fulfillment of Young Love.

Here's a review from some who loved it: Book Crazy, and here's a review from someone who didn't: Books at Midnight.

I myself really empathized with Elizah (she made the book for me), thought the supernatural elements of the plot included some random bits that weren't quite developed enough to make sense to me (which I found vexing), wished for a bit more of the romance (Nathaniel was cute, with lots of paranormal romance potential that was never quite realized....oh well), and ultimately found it rather haunting....

Personal postscript:

There was one issue that I personally had with this book that spoiled my enjoyment of it somewhat. As an archaeologist, I was very put off by Elizah's cavalier appropriation of human remains. In my own line of work, I get calls every so often from people who have unwittingly found human bones, and sometimes it's my job to be the one to pick them up, carefully an