Giving Up the Ghost

February 1, 2008
Gr 5-8-Thirteen-year-old Davia and her parents arrive at a once-grand Louisiana plantation to spend the summer caring for her crotchety and terminally ill great-aunt Mari. While the elderly woman has worked hard to restore the "Big House" to rights, she has not been as successful at bringing the ghost of a mid-19th-century relative to peace. Emilie, the shade of a 13-year-old Creole girl, continues to haunt the plantation's inhabitants, sometimes spitefully and other times playfully. From her deathbed, Aunt Mari entrusts the release of Emilie's spirit to Davia, who overcomes her fear of a great many things to learn how to honor the living, the dying, and the dead. The novel lacks a unifying focus. It manages some spooky episodes but doesn't truly evoke the atmosphere of a horror tale. It involves family dynamics, such as fears surrounding Davia's asthma and the possibility that her mother's cancer, now in remission, may reoccur, but the characters never seem to connect. Though Davia unravels the mysterious circumstances of Emilie's death, the story isn't suspenseful, and the girl's encounters with the ghost often seem dreamlike. Still, the book will draw some readers through its subject matter and will thereby connect them with a character seeking to understand her family, her place in a larger scheme of things, and her glimpse beyond the natural world. This offering will appeal to youngsters who feel that supernaturally themed books need not be riveting to be consumed."Suzanne Gordon, Peachtree Ridge High School, Suwanee, GA"

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