3.5 out of 5 stars
A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.
Sunny has a knack for seeing and hearing ghosts, he even has three living in his Mum’s shop; Herbert who lives in a blanket box, Violet who resides in the stationery cupboard and Walter who is lightly haunting the wardrobe.
They tell him one day that they want to visit a local castle where there is supposed to be a notoriously scary ghost called the Wicked Lady. She was rumoured to ride in a coach made of human bones. They have a lovely day at the castle but see no other ghosts at all. They climb back into the van and head home. Herbert happens to glance out the back window and sees a ghost staring at him and alongside her is a spectral black dog.
Strange things are afoot; the following day a lady turns up at the shop, wanders about for a short time before buying the blanket box. Herbert is not in there at the time, but he has nowhere to sleep that night so joins one of the other ghosts. The same lady is back the following day with a young man and buys another item for her museum. Inside is one of the ghosts from the shop. The two ghosts that are left are convinced that it is the Wicked lady that has taken their companion. He doesn’t expect her to turn up in her coach of bones driven by the headless coachman and walk through the door though!
I don’t read that many children’s books now, partly because I have a massive stack of other books to read and my children all being teenagers read themselves, some with much more encouragement than others… (Any tips for getting a teen boy to read are appreciated). Salt sent a small pile of books to me and this was in with them so I thought I might as well give it a go. It is a charming little story about a boy and his friendly ghosts. It has a simple plotline that children will be able to follow easily. These are not scary ghosts, rather they share some of the foibles and flaws of normal human beings and there are even parts that made me laugh, so I can imagine that children will love it too.
For the teenager, some of the books about adventurers and sportspeople might be suitable – Danny MacAskill’s book for example. Although that’s me limiting my view of someone by their age and gender!
I have read that book a little while ago. I think that it is just trying to find the hook for him. It may happen one day.