Not Quite a Ghost

Written by: Anne Ursu

First line: The house stood a little apart from the rest of the block, as if it did not quite fit in. 

Why you should read this book: Violet Hart is already dealing with that strange uncertainty that accompanies the transition from elementary to middle school and the questions of whether the people you've been friends with your entire life will remain your friends once puberty commences, and now her mom and stepdad have decided to purchase this really creepy house so she can have her own room, even if that room is in the extra creepy attic. This isn't quite a ghost story, although there's definitely something like a ghost in the house, but it draws most of its spookiness from its discussion of undiagnosed chronic illness and its use of symbols and themes from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." Anyone who's ever been accused of malingering when they felt awful or been gaslit by "friends" who had turned against them will understand what Violet is going through in this well-paced and clever story.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you still haven't gotten a diagnosis, it might be a bit frustrating. 

All the Lovely Bad Ones

Written by: Mary Downing Hahn

First line: Grandmother met us at the Burlington Airport, a big smile on her face and her arms open for a hug. 

Why you should read this book: Banned from summer camp due to their constant pranks, Travis and his sister Corey are spending the summer at their grandmother's quaint Vermont hotel, and when they learn that the property is supposedly haunted, they can't help themselves. Little could they know that their carefully orchestrated fake haunting is just the thing to wake up the real ghosts who slumber there, uneasy in their graves. Now it's up to these two tricksters to learn the property's chilling history and set to right the evils of the past. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: For a ghost story it's not especially scary. 

Took: A Ghost Story

Written by: Mary Downing Hahn

First line: The old woman stands on the hilltop, just on the edge of the woods, well hidden from the farmhouse below.

Why you should read this book: Daniel and Erica are not thrilled about their family's downgrade to living in an old farmhouse in West Virginia, which is creepy enough on its own without the locals warning them about local cryptids Old Auntie and Bloody Bones, who kidnap a little girl every fifty years, and force her to do chores. When Old Auntie comes for Erica and turns out her last servant, Selene, everyone is convinced that there is nothing to be done but wait another fifty years for her release, but Daniel is determined to use every resource within reach to bring his sister home again and save Selene as well. With his parents paralyzed with depression and almost everyone else too terrified of the ghost witch and her skeleton ghost pig, Daniel will have to confront the evil himself. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Honestly, Daniel is kind of a boring and undeveloped character, but perhaps the rest of the story is developed enough that you won't notice. 

The Waters

Written by: Bonnie Jo Campbell

First line: Once upon a time M'sauga Island was a place where desperate mothers abandoned baby girls and where young women went seeking to prevent babies altogether.

Why you should read this book: For Bonnie Jo Campbell's forthcoming (WW Norton, January 2024) novel, I have to abandon my typical 4-sentence format. If you're not familiar with my creative relationship with Bonnie Jo Campbell, you can learn a great deal about it here on my visual art website. If you do know about the 4 volumes of comics based on her work I've published, you probably won't be surprised to learn that I drew the map that will appear as the frontispiece of this new novel, and that I read an early draft (the version she sent to the publisher) last year and that I just finished reading the ARC. I'm deeply inspired and I've just been telling people for well over a year to keep an eye out for this book, because I think it's going to knock people's socks off. 

Obviously, this is a biased account and not a true book review. Because I freaking love this book. 

Like most of Campbell's work, it's set in rural southwestern Michigan, is deeply tied to the land, and features a quirky and colorful cast moving through circumstances that perfectly balance comedy and tragedy. It covers new ground by opening the world up to a fairy tale sensibility and the possibly of true magic.

Hermine "Herself" Zook, age unknown, has always lived on M'sauga Island, and has long been the resident witch of the town of Whiteheart, guided by the spirit of her mother, Baba Rose, who haunts her right arm and also the eternal flame of her stove. In addition to providing natural remedies to those who need healing, she also adopts unwanted babies, and, if approached properly, provides herbal abortions. And thus the tale unfolds. Now raising her granddaughter Dorothy "Donkey" Zook in her footsteps, Hermine finds herself increasingly at odds with a hypocritical world that want to use and control her strength even as the poison of modernity seeps into the swamp from every direction. 

I have a million things to say about this book, which I'm saving for the comic I want to write about it. However, if you like rural noir, fairy tales, strong female characters, strange children, the state of Michigan, nuanced debates about ethics and religion, or detailed descriptions of the natural world, you will probably like this book. 

Pre-order it from your local bookstore or public library and be the first to know. 

Living Ghosts & Mischievous Monsters: Chilling American Indian Stories

Written by: Dan SaSuWeh Jones

First line: Ghost stories were a big part of my life growing up as an American Indian.

Why you should read this book: It sets itself apart from most collections of creepy stories and folktales in two ways: first that, many of the stories were personally collected by the author, and second, that many of the stories really happened. It sets itself apart from most collections of indigenous legends in that the author and illustrator, as well as all their sources, are indigenous themselves. This is a kids' book, but the spooky factor is turned up fairly high on some of them—readers will meet all kind of terrifying spirits, monsters, ghosts, and other fairy tale creatures, none of whom have the best wishes of humanity in mind. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Probably too scary for very young readers.

Mine

Written by: Delilah S. Dawson

First line: Lily Horne was dying.

Why you should read this book: A delightfully creepy ghost story that takes the spooky factor about as high as you can go and still get your book into the hands of a young audience, this novel sees budding actress Lily Horne dragged across the country to start a new life in Florida. She's got a horrible secret she can barely admit to herself, but her immediate problem is that her new house is a hoarded disaster, and the previous (deceased) inhabitants seem displeased with the Hornes' home improvements even though Lily's parents don't notice anything out of the ordinary and also are at the end of their rope with Lily's histrionics. Who is messing with Lily, and will they succeed in keeping their stranglehold on the past, or can Lily find a way to put these ghosts to rest and come to terms with her own mistakes?

Why you shouldn't read this book: I can imagine it would be difficult for anyone currently living in a hoarded home that they had no part in hoarding. Also, for a kids' book, it's pretty scary. 

Anya's Ghost

Written by: Vera Brosgol

First line: What's for breakfast.

Why you should read this book: Anya just wants to be a normal high school student, and she's done a lot of work to lose her accent and dissociate herself from the one weird Russian kid in her private school, but she only has one friend, who can be kind of mean, and the boy Anya likes already has a prettier girlfriend. Reeling with the unfairness of the world, she runs off and falls into a well, where she discovers the bones and the ghost of Emily Reilly, who helps save her from the well, and then sticks around to help Anya with her schoolwork and her love life. Maybe Emily is the kind of friend that Anya's always longed for, or maybe her kind of help is the kind of help that Anya can do without.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You will never, ever get over your first love, and you'll never, ever let them get over you.

 

Painting Their Portraits in Winter

Written by: Myrian Gurba

First line: It was December and it was just girls—Mom, my sister Ixchel, and I—staying in the damp house where Mom grew up in Guadalajara.

Why you should read this book: It calls itself a collection of short fiction but it reads like an alluring composite: memoir of growing up Mexican-American and lesbian, mixed with a collection of traditional and modern ghost stories, woven into a love letter to a beloved, departed grandmother. The voice rings with all the authenticity of an adolescent fumbling their way to adulthood as well as the wisdom of the adult looking back on the journey. Heartily enjoyable, creepy, funny, and rife with love and the little details that love summons.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Lots of death and creepiness.

A Choir of Ill Children

Written by: Tom Piccirilli

First line: We move in spasms.

Why you should read this book: A thick and grimy tapestry of southern gothic intrigue, this book begins with Thomas, a man plagued by history, his own personal experiences and the lives of the ancestors who came before him and left him alone with a giant house, a sizable fortune, and the care of his three brothers, conjoined triplets joined at the forehead. Murder, suicide, and accidental death creep through his story like Spanish moss and rising water, alone with a strange cast of colorful locals and equally colorful out-of-towners. There's a phantom dog-kicker, a mute girl, a bevy of swamp witches, ghosts, monks, and coked out grad students, combined with dangerous weather, and the weight of the world's expectations in this weird and wonderful story.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The morality of Kingdom Come is likely not your morality.

The Walls around Us

Written by: Nova Ren Suma

First line: We went wild that hot night.

Why you should read this book: This dark and cunning ghost story weaves a tangled thicket of murder and revenge, twisted through time and sprouting from the fertile soil of the Aurora Hills Juvenile Detention Center in upstate New York, almost all the way to the Canadian border. Told in dual point of view, the story splits between the quiet and detailed observations of Amber, a girl long locked up in the facility for the murder of her abusive stepfather, and Violet, a talented ballerina with her sights set on Julliard, with nothing in her way except for the memory of her one-time best friend, Ori, who was sentenced to Aurora Hills for murdering two girls behind the dance studio. In the place where their worlds collide, both girls will find justice, although perhaps not in the way they hoped to find it.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've forgotten your own crimes.

Ghosts

Written by: Raine Telgemeier

First line: One Double-Back combo, one Cheeseback with fries, a Double Napoleon shake...

Why you should read this book: Cat loves her little sister Maya, and she knows the family's move from sunny southern California to the foggy, windswept northern part of the state is essential to keep Maya's cystic fibrosis under control, but she doesn't like the gray skies or the ubiquitous ghost stories that cast a constant shadow over her new home in Bahía de la Luna. When her new neighbor, Carlos, insists, and then proves Bahía de la Luna's ghost stories are all real, and her new friends want her to participate in the town's extensive Day of the Dead festivities, Cat feels nothing but fear of death. Maya and the others embrace the presence of the dead, but Cat will need more context to bridge the gap between the memory of her grandmother and the possibility of her sister's demise.

Why you shouldn't read this book: People who don't need to dwell on ways in which being dead might be better than being alive.

The Ghosts Go Scaring

Written by: Chrissy Bozik and Patricia Storms

First line: The ghosts go scaring one by one, hurrah! hurrah!

Why you should read this book: A silly ghost counting book based on the tune, "The Ants Go Marching One by One." Kids can easily pick up the chant and will enjoy singing along. Good for Halloween read-alouds.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are extremely susceptible to earworms.

Doll Bones

Written by: Holly Black

First line: Poppy set down one of the mermaid dolls close to the stretch of asphalt road that represented the Blackest Sea.

Why you should read this book: It's a simple, but rather thrilling story, part thriller, part murder mystery, part road story, and all about that age when boys and girls start thinking about growing up. Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been playing make-believe together for a long time, but when Zach's father pushes him to quit, Poppy will do anything to get him back in the club, including taking her mother's mysterious, forbidden, and apparently haunted doll out of the cabinet. Now they're either being haunted by the ghost of a Victorian girl, or the victim of Poppy's imagination, and either way, they'll be going a very long way to free themselves from the past.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You would do anything to keep the remains of your loved ones nearby.