Two kids are about to find out that their lives are anything but ordinary when a ghost from the 1918 flu pandemic arrives and stirs up adventure. Perfect for fans of A Tale Dark and Grimm ! Ghosts only haunt when they've left something behind... When Henry Davis moves into the neighborhood, Barbara Anne and her classmates at Washington Carver Elementary don't know what to make of him. He's pale, small, odd. For curious Barbara Anne, Henry's also a riddle--a boy who sits alone at recess sketching in a mysterious notebook, a boy, she soon learns, who's being haunted by a ghost named Edgar. With the help of some new friends, this unlikely duo is off on an adventure to discover who Edgar was while alive and why he's haunting Henry now. Together, they might just help Edgar find what he needs to finally be at peace. Gr 3-5-Henry Davis is new in town. On his first day of fifth grade, Henry meets Barbara Anne, a fellow fifth-grader and a resident of Henry's new Seattle suburb. The two make for unlikely friends; Henry is quiet and reserved, whereas Barbara Anne is outspoken and the leader of the pack. As the narrator of this story, she takes control of every situation; she is energetic and opinionated and inserts herself into Henry Davis's life and the mystery that soon unfolds. Barbara Anne and Henry, along with a band of trustworthy friends and associates, work to unravel a mystery that is haunting Henry. While the crew get involved in a myriad of elementary high jinks, the quick-witted banter keeps readers engaged and the story moving rapidly along. Packed with adventure, this is a perfect read for reluctant readers and thrill seekers. It is also a great option for fans of spooky tales and ghostly chills. VERDICT Children will love the fast-paced narrative and pulse-pounding adventure. Highly recommended for public and school libraries with demand for ghost stories and mysteries.-Maryjean Bakaletz, Morris County Library, Whippany, NJα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. "Convincing, humorous, warm, and definitely spooky." -- Kirkus Reviews "By turns hilarious and macabre, this serves up chills, laughs, and even some life lessons through the antics of an unlikely group of friends." -- Booklist "With haunting events, a ghost with an interesting backstory, and a problem left unsolved in the wraith’s past life, this very readable novel has all the staples of a classic ghost story, and fans of the genre won’t be disappointed." -- The Bulletin “Siebel’s writing is filled with clever turns of phrase (“this was as voluntary as a fire drill”), and Barbara Anne’s limited sense of self-awareness makes her an amusing narrator .” –The Horn Book Kathryn Siebel teaches humanities at Billings Middle School in Seattle and works with elementary school students at the Green Lake School-Age Care Program. She has worked in educational publishing and as an English teacher and librarian and has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is also the author of The Trouble with Twins . If you want my actual opinion, I’d have to say that it comes down to this: either you believe in them or you don’t. Ghosts, I mean. Sometimes that changes suddenly, of course. Usually, when one shows up in the middle of the night. But let’s just say you’re a skeptic, a doubter, like I was. I can respect that. Then, you have to start where I always do—with some research. And you have to be ready to uncover some things that you honestly can’t explain. So let me just tell you this one story. It’s about a woman in England who claimed her daughter was reincarnated and started to remember every bit of her past life. It seems they were driving in the country one day, and the little girl made her mother stop the car in front of this random house. She screamed at her mother until she did it. And then she hopped right out and pushed through the gate and ran toward this cottage—in the middle of nowhere. Her mother followed her, of course. “What is it?” she asked. “I think I used to live here,” the girl said. “I’m sure I did.” Creepy, right? And how would you have liked to be inside, sipping your tea or whatever, when the two of them showed up? And then there are the kids with the “invisible friends.” Pretty common, really. Nobody else can see them except the kid. But they’re all alone in their room just chattering away. What explains that? Or sometimes it’s an animal, like a dog. And it just stops in its tracks at a certain spot and starts barking like crazy. At nothing? But maybe it’s something less obvious, like it was for me—with Henry. I don’t know how to explain it except to say that from the minute he walked into Ms. Biniam’s class on the first day of the fifth grade, there was something, well, familiar about Henry—which was impossible, really, because I’d never seen him before in my life. I guess you could call it déjà vu. Yo