A Novel Idea: ghost story

Showing posts with label ghost story. Show all posts

05 October 2010

Book Review Revisited :: The Seer of Shadows by Avi

** This is part of a post I originally published on 30 June 2010. **

The Seer of Shadows

Written by Avi

Published by HarperCollins Children's Books

202 pages

"I stood there in great distress. My head fairly seethed. ... The next moment my mind went to the words on the cemetery gate: The Dead Shall Be Reborn. ... Tears ran down my face as I had to accept the extraordinary fact: I, Horace Carpetine, had somehow brought Eleanora Von Macht back into the living world."

Publisher's Summary: In New York City in 1872, fourteen-year-old Horace, a photographer's apprentice, becomes entangled in a plot to create fraudulent spirit photographs, but when Horace accidentally frees the real ghost of a dead girl bent on revenge, his life takes a frightening turn.

Mary Elizabeth's Musings: One-third ghost story, one-third historical fiction, and one-third history of still photography, The Seer of Shadows is truly mesmerizing and page-turning. Avi's amazing ability to capture a specific time and place in history is remarkable, as evidenced throughout this novel. The reader will find him or herself as entangled in this story as the daring protagonist, Horace Carpetine, as he (Horace) races against time to stop a girl's spirit from inducing terrible destruction upon her family. Get ready to read this novel from start-to-finish in one sitting!

This book is recommended for ages 9 - 12 years.

More page-turners and spine-tinglers I recommend by Avi:

**For the comments section: What are your favorite ghost stories? **

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16 July 2010

Friday Book Blogger Hop :: The Book I Need to Get My Hands On...NOW!!!

This week's question for the Friday Book Blogger Hop is: RIGHT THIS INSTANT, WHAT BOOK ARE YOU DYING TO GET YOUR HANDS ON (PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE)?

And my answer is ...

The Shadows

by Jacqueline West

Description from Indiebound.org: Old Ms. McMartin is definitely dead. Now her crumbling Victorian mansion lies vacant. When eleven-year-old Olive and her dippy mathematician parents move in, she knows there's something odd about the place--not least the walls covered in strange antique paintings. But when Olive finds a pair of old spectacles in a dusty drawer, she discovers the most peculiar thing yet: She can travel inside these paintings to a world that's strangely quiet . . . and eerily like her own Yet Elsewhere harbors dark secrets--and Morton, an undersized boy with an outsize[d] temper.

As she and Morton form an uneasy alliance, Olive finds herself ensnared in a plan darker and more dangerous than she could have imagined, confronting a power that wants to be rid of her by any means necessary. It's up to Olive to save the house from the dark shadows, before the lights go out for good.

Mary Elizabeth's Musings: I found this children's mystery through IndieBound.org just yesterday! While I am not familiar with this author, the story's introdcution sure has me hooked on this book already!! From the description above, it sounds a bit Coraline-esque with a smidgen of Chasing Vermeer and the Spiderwick Chronicles thrown in the mix ... I will be racing to the library today to snag a copy!!!