Masterful! A story to enchant middle-grade and grown-up kids alike.
It’s one of those books that make me want to share every emotion I experienced every step of the way, and why, with example citations. But I can’t; I won’t risk spoiling your adventure with Diana Corbitt’s wonderful characters: twelve-year-old Theresa – who’s much the mom of her family since the recent loss of their mother – her younger brother, and her new schoolmate, Kerry, visiting from England.
I almost said: so, let me just tell you how it made me feel, this book. But I can’t do that either. I can’t say I FELT it… I just WAS, wrapped in the Ghosters world the second my eyes hit the page; wrapped in the human warmth and kindness, the ache and kinship the author conveys through her characters’ actions, their surroundings… her art and labor in this is impressive – as well done or better than what I liked best about “Calliope Jones and The Last World Diver”; all with the simplest if aptest words and everyday similes that conjure images and evoke memories far more informative and impactful than words; surely, all, painstakingly chosen.
Rapt with the storyline, I was drawn to the end, unawares, spellbound, like an ion through a drift tube, watching, wondering, itching to learn, what will the kids discover, about themselves, about their family? Something dreadful? Something healing? But more urgently, more pressing: what will happen next?!
I wondered, too, early in the story: how come I’m not scared? Is something missing? No. It just isn’t. I don’t think it’s intended to be. Intense, yes. Eerie? Yes. Scary, no. Not unless tension mounting at the thought of confronting your own fear of the never-yet-experienced scares you.
That tension ratcheted up, and up, like a crossbow’s string, cranked back, notch by notch, again and again, tightening alarmingly, so it seemed at any moment an arrow must loose, and BAM! A new obstacle! And frustration – the kids’, my own – cranked the tension higher still.
You shake your head and think: that kind of involvement in a story’s just all in your head; your willingness to suspend disbelief... S’okay, reading IS all in your head, but I think you’ll find the dialog and action SO REALISTIC – so often positively PHOTO-realistic – there’s be no need to consciously suspend disbelief; no choice in the matter, either. You’re just there, right there, with the kids.
And when the arrow does finally slip, the release is sublime. A denouement among denouements, in a story to grip and enchant middle-grade and grown-up kids alike.