A thoroughly satisfying ghost story with just the right amounts of scariness, suspense, and danger to keep even a reluctant reader interested. During WWII, 11-year old Abby and her mother have temporarily moved in with relatives in upstate New York while they await news of Abby’s father, missing-in-action somewhere in Europe. Abby’s cousin Chad is a trial to her—he constantly teases and belittles her, even though Abby can’t figure out what she’s done to provoke this behavior. When Abby and Chad are the only ones to see a ghost late one night in Chad’s house, they share a bond, even though Chad refuses to admit he’s seen the apparition. Abby, smart, sensitive, and good at sticking up for herself, soon learns the legend of the ghost of Stratton House, the house that now belongs to Chad’s family. Felicia Stratton, about Abby’s age at the time of her death, had drowned on Christmas Day, 1864, while her father was away fighting in the Civil War. When her father came back from the war to find his beloved daughter dead, he moved his family to California to escape the painful memories. Now people say that Felicia’s ghost, always wearing a red velvet dress, appears around Christmastime to signal that somebody is about to die. Events on Christmas Day, 1944, eerily and dangerously mimic what happened on Felicia’s last day of life and only Chad’s quick thinking keeps Abby alive. Absorbing and entertaining. (Fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-525-46389-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
At 13, Meg sees nothing good about her parents' decision to leave a fast-track law practice and suburban Denver for life in rural Ohio. She misses the mountains, her friends, and the shopping mall and hates everything about Lebanon—the heat and humidity, the landscape, the old houses, even the smell. The nearest neighbors are seventh-grader Talley and his ancient great-grandmother, Mim, who gives Meg the creeps. But when Meg finds the chest in the attic of her early 1800's farmhouse, she turns to Talley and Mim for help in unlocking its secrets. Their discoveries will prevent a greedy developer from destroying Mim's ancestral home; in the process, Meg realizes ``where she really was. Home.'' The setting here is especially well evoked, while Precek hooks readers with the probable importance of papers that fell from the chest, unnoticed by Meg. The cover art, however, inaccurately depicts both Meg and the chest. Still: an engrossing read for anyone who's ever harbored a treasure-chest fantasy or kept a delicious secret. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-02-775045-0
Page Count: 127
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
An inspiring story of young scientists in action, featured on Nova: how schoolchildren in Everett, Washington, worked with their teachers to clean up Pigeon Creek and reclaim it as a salmon spawning ground. Candid color photos of boys and girls of several ethnic groups, plus a text based on recorded conversations with the kids, lend drama and immediacy; additional scientific facts (e.g., how salmon scales tell the age of the fish; how salmon build a nest or ``redd'') appear in boxes. Glossary; index. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-87156-572-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1992
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