A Boy and Two Girls--One Dead, The Other Very Lively
Written: Oct 20 '08 (Updated Oct 20 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: great characterization; hilarious situations; spine-chilling spooky interludes; great period details
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: Middle readers (10 and up) will lap up the humour and spooky bits in this excellent mystery/ghost story featuring a boy and two girls—one long dead, one very lively.
jc_hall's Full Review: Richard Peck - The Ghost Belonged to Me: A Novel
In which Alexander Armsworth discovers girls, one long dead, one very lively.
Alexander Armsworth may go to the same school as Blossom Culp, but he’s a rich man’s son living in a mansion with his pretentious, social-climbing, mother and a debutante sister, while Blossom lives in a shack with her gypsy mom. Still, that doesn’t stop Blossom being sweet on him. For his own part, Alexander doesn’t want anything to do with girls, especially not Blossom with her black eyes and skinny legs. Still, she has a way of making him do things he doesn’t want to do, like claiming his family barn’s haunted and making him go investigate.
Not that he believes her tall tales, ever, but curiosity gets the better of him. The first time he goes to the barn, all he discovers is a little injured lap dog. But the next time he gets up there, he sees a lot more than he bargained for. And the third time…well, let’s just say he wishes with all his heart that he were not receptive to that sort of thing. Still, what’s a boy to do when he has information—strangely acquired, true, but information nonetheless—pertaining to the lives of innocent folk?
Acting on his information and saving folks and being hailed a hero are all very well, but then his mother becomes convinced that they are socially doomed unless he were to lie about his—ah, spiritual gifts. Honest to a fault, like his eccentric great-uncle Miles, Alexander instead decides to find out why the dead girl is haunting his family barn. Meanwhile—no surprises here—enterprising Blossom is charging admission to the barn to take people on a ghostly tour.
Will Alexander find out why the dead girl’s spirit is in torment and why, in particular, is she haunting his family barn? What do the initials on the hitching post outside the barn stand for? And why did the original owner of the mansion commit suicide in one if its many rooms? And will Blossom ever leave Alexander alone?
The Ghost Belonged To Me is a wonderful story that will appeal to grown-ups as well as younger readers. It’s a mystery, a ghost story, a comedy of manners, and a history lesson combined. Set in the 1900s in small-town America, the period details (down to the costumes, customs, way of speaking, etc.) are part and parcel of the story, and provide an unobtrusive history lesson even as the reader enjoys the story and characters first and foremost. This reader particularly enjoyed the sub-plot about Alexander’s debutante sister Lucille, her unworthy beau, and her newspaperman saviour, as well as Alexander’s mother’s attempts at social-climbing. And the mystery, finally revealed in a reminiscence by Uncle Miles, is enough to send chills down your spine.
Highly recommended for young’uns who enjoy a spooky read, though adults will most certainly relish the tongue-in-cheek, dry humour inherent in much of the excellent writing.
Richard Peck is the prolific author of many YA novels, several of which are set in small-town America in the 1900’s and feature the spunky character, Blossom Culp. Chronologically, The Ghost Belonged To Me happens before Ghosts I Have Been, and while the latter features the inimitable Blossom as narrator and protagonist, the former is very much Alexander’s story.
When Alexander notices an eerie light out in the barn, he thinks his friend Blossom Culp is trying to spook him. But one night, Alexander comes face t...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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