The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery - a review

The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery
By Allison Rushby
Candlewick Press,  2018

Despite her young age, Flossie Birdwhistle is the Turnkey of London's Highgate Cemetery.  Having died herself of rheumatic fever at the age of 12, Flossie is now in charge of the well-being of all the souls interred at Highgate.  This alone can be a daunting job, however, when Flossie discovers a mysterious man who is neither of the living nor the spirit world, her job becomes more difficult. Now she must consider the concerns of the living and the very fate of England in WW II,

"Flossie simply couldn't work it out.  Who was this man?  What was he doing in London? And why had he run away like that?

Maybe if she described him, one of the newly interred at Ada's cemetery might know of him.  He was obviously an officer of great importance. Perhaps he had been in the newspapers."

In a story that is more mysterious than horrific, Flossie rallies allies from the ranks of the dead to combat a threat to the living. The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery is a genre-bending mix of middle-grade historical fiction, thriller, and ghost story. Turnkey should appeal to a wide variety of readers.  Only the extremely timid will find it disturbing; most will enjoy this unusual tale of ghostly heroism in time of war.


Coming this summer to a shelf near you.

Note:
Highgate Cemetery in London is on the Registry of Historic Parks and Gardens. Click the links to learn more about it.



My copy of The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery was provided by the publisher at my request.

The Time of the Fireflies - a review

I was actually searching for a fantasy book, but stumbled upon a good old-fashioned ghost story instead.

Little, Kimberly Griffiths. 2014. The Time of the Fireflies.  New York: Scholastic.

Larissa Renaud doesn't live in a regular house. As she tells it,

"My parents moved us into the Bayou Bridge Antique Store—a fact I do not brag about. It's embarrassing to admit I share the same space as musty, mothball-smelly furniture, dusty books, and teacups that dead people once drank from."

Sometimes she wishes they had never come back here from Baton Rouge, but her family has a long history in the bayou town, much of it is tragic.

When Larissa receives  a mysterious call on a broken antique phone, she's got a real mystery on her hands.

"Trust the fireflies," 

the ghostly girl tells her, setting Larissa on  a strange and eerie path of discovery. Can Larissa right the wrongs of the past to save her family's future?

Though it highlights rural poverty, bullying, and new sibling issues, The Time of the Fireflies is at heart, a ghost story with a remarkably likable and resourceful protagonist.

To avoid giving away too much, I'll merely mention that readers may see some similarities to Rebecca Stead's Newbery Medal-winning, When You Reach Me. The spunky Larissa and author Kimberly Griffiths Little will draw you into the rich world of the Louisiana bayou until you too, are carried away by the fireflies.

A link to The Time of the Fireflies trailer is here.  I'm not posting the trailer here because, honestly, I think the book is better than its trailer.

(My copy of the book was provided by the publisher as an Advance Reader Copy.)

The Year of Shadows - a review

Let me begin by saying that it's very hard to review a book that has already been so spectacularly reviewed by none other than its own author and main character!  Check out Claire Legrand's review of The Year of Shadows here.

Below is my more feeble attempt.

Legrand, Claire. 2013. The Year of Shadows. New York: Simon & Schuster.

(Advance Reader Copy)

Twelve-year-old Olivia Stellatella is a loner.  Black is her color of choice, and she prefers the company of her ever-present sketchbook to that of her peers at school.  It's been a difficult year, what with "The Economy" and all.  Olivia doesn't know exactly what "The Economy" means, only that in her case, it means that she now shops at the "charity store" and the orchestra that her father conducts may go out of business, taking his job with it. And her mom has left, an occurrence she blames solely on the Maestro. If that sounds bad, just wait; it gets worse.  Having spent all the family funds on the Philharmonic, the family's new "home" is the backstage area of the crumbling Emerson Hall, home of the Philharmonic orchestra.

Initially, her only "friend" is the peculiarly intuitive and communicative cat, Igor.

The cat rolled over at looked at me upside down. "Who's the Maestro?" I rolled over on my back too. Staring at him like this made my head hurt, but it was kind of fun. "Well, technically, he's half my DNA. But I don't like to think about that."

The cat blinked slowly, like he was already half asleep.

"I mean, I guess, yeah, he's my father." I made quotation marks with my fingers. "On paper, maybe. But not to me. I've disowned him, I guess you could say. " I paused, tapping my feet together. "Everyone at school thinks I'm crazy these days, you know.  Because of my clothes and because I draw all the time instead of talking to people.  I guess by talking to a cat I'm proving them right." 

Until she makes an unlikely friend in Henry, the "perfect" kid from school.

"Hey, cool," a voice said from above.  "You found a cat."

I scrambled up into a sitting position and faced the voice: red hair, tons of freckles, stupid ears that stuck out.

Henry Page.

Ugh. 

Together, Olivia and Henry meet the other inhabitants of Emerson Hall - ghosts, or more specifically, the affable Frederick, the mysterious Mr. Worthington, and the close yet strangely disconnected pair, Tillie and Jax. Frederick and friends may be friendly, but they are desperate as well.  Desperate to move on to the world of Death. And there are other more dangerous things than these ghosts haunting Emerson Hall.

If the orchestra cannot make enough money, the hall will be demolished.  If the hall is demolished, Olivia and her ghostly friends will become homeless.   Olivia believes that perhaps by helping set the ghosts on their way, she can begin to find her own way.  In the process, she learns that sometimes, it is only by looking outward to the plights and concerns of others,  that we can begin to understand our own.

The Year of Shadows is a dark and gripping tale that is not without humor, supplied primarily by the wryly comedic cat, and the antics of  Joan, Olivia's classmate and resident intermediate school protest performer. Olivia has just the right amount of sass and sarcasm for a troubled, but ultimately good, young girl. Goth-lite for middle school readers.

The publisher's site suggests The Year of Shadows for Grades 3-7.  I would suggest Grades 4-8, depending on the reader.

Look closely at the cover art for The Year of Shadows and in addition to Olivia and Igor, you will see Frederick, Mr. Worthington, Tillie and Jax.

Coming to a shelf near you, August 27, 2013.

Note:
If you're a librarian or book blogger, you may request an Advance Reader Copy of The Year of Shadows on the author's website.  I did!

In the Shadow of Blackbirds - a review

There is no easy segue from yesterday's Captain Underpants review to today's In the Shadow of Blackbirds. I primarily review children's books.  This one is definitely for young adults.

Winters, Cat. 2013. In the Shadow of Blackbirds. New York: Amulet.
Advance Reader Copy supplied by NetGalley.

Through the windows, I watched the boys proceed to a line of green military trucks that waited rumbling alongside the curb. The recruits climbed one by one beneath the vehicles' canvas coverings with the precision of shiny bullets being loaded into a gun. The trucks would cart them off to their training camp, which was no doubt overrun with feverish, shivering flu victims. The boys who didn't fall ill would learn how to kill other young men who were probably arriving at a German train station in their Sunday-best clothing at that very moment. (From Chapter 2, "Aunt Eva and the Spirits")

The year is 1918, and 16-year-old Mary Shelly Black is on her way from Portland to San Diego to stay with her widowed 26-year-old aunt. Her mother is dead. Her father has recently been arrested - swept up in the anti-German immigrant frenzy that's sweeping the country.

The sign in front of the eatery claimed the place specialized in "Liberty Steaks," but that was simply paranoid speak for We don't want to call anything a name that sounds remotely German, like "hamburger." We're pro-American. We swear! (from Chapter 13, "Ugly Things")

Young men are eagerly enlisting to fight in the trenches of Europe, and amidst it all, the "Spanish flu" ravages the population - their flimsy gauze masks are no match for the deadly virus.

The businessmen in smart felt hats rode with me, probably on their lunch break. They buried their gauze-covered noses in the San Diego Union, and one of them felt the need to read the October influenza death tolls out loud. "Philadelphia: over eleven thousand dead and counting - just this month. Holy Moses! Boston: for thousand dead." The use of cold statistics to describe the loss of precious lives made me ill. (From Chapter 17, "Keep Your Nightmares to Yourself")

The bleak situation is made all the worse by her recent discovery that her dearest Stephen, the only bright spot in her sad existence in San Diego, has enlisted in the Army, not because he desires to fight and kill German soldiers, but to show love for his country and free himself from living under the same roof as his brother, a drug-addled, "spirit photographer,"

So this is war. The declaration changed Coronado and San Diego overnight. The men are all enlisting and everyone is hurrying to make sure we all look like real Americans. One of our neighbors held a bonfire in his backyard and invited everyone over to burn their foreign books. I stood at the back of the crowd and watched people destroy the fairy tales of Ludwig Tieck and the Brothers Grimm and the poetry of Goethe, Eichendorff, Rilke, and Hesse. They burned sheet music carrying the melodies of Bach, Strauss, Beethoven, and Wagner. Even Brahm's "Lullaby."

In the Shadow of Blackbirds takes a decidedly darker turn when Mary Shelly learns of Stephen's death in the trenches of Europe.  She attends his funeral, but something is very wrong.  She can hear him, she can feel his torment.  His spirit is not at rest; and amidst the horror of war and the flu pandemic, something else is terribly, terribly wrong.  Spirit photography and séances are commonplace as millions across the country yearn to connect with loved ones lost to war or disease; but Shelly is a girl of science, of rationalism - raised in a house of reason and education.  But how can science and reason explain the anguished pleas of her deceased love?

In The Shadow of Blackbirds is gripping historical fiction and Mary Shelly Black is a tragic yet strong protagonist. Containing some of the same themes as Avi's dark, Seer of Shadows (Harper Collins, 2008) (spirit photography, rationalism vs. spiritualism), In the Shadow of Blackbirds examines these themes as well as romantic love and post-traumatic stress syndrome. The setting (San Diego and nearby Coronado Island) and the juxtaposition of love and war, disease and science combine to offer a dark and gritty debut novel.  The descriptions of trench warfare and everyday life during the massive flu pandemic are gritty and graphic, reminiscent of Mary Hooper's novel of Europe's 17th century plague, At the Sign of the Sugared Plum (Bloomsbury, 2003). The fear of death is almost palpable, made even more so by the reader's knowledge that garlic amulets and gauze masks are powerless against the killer flu. To read In the Shadow of Blackbirds is to be immersed in a grim period of American history that at times, bears resemblance to our own.


From the Author's Note,

...the influenza pandemic of 1918 (this particular strain was known as the "Spanish flu" and the "Spanish Lady") killed at least twenty million people worldwide. (Some estimates run as high as more than one hundred million people killed." Add to that the fifteen million people who were killed as a result of World War I and you can see why the average life expectancy dropped to thrifty-nine years in 1918 - and why people craved seances and spirit photography. 

Note: If you've ever watched the classic Academy Award Best Picture, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), this warning from Mary Shelly to her love will foreshadow and haunt,

 "Please stay safe. It's not everyone who has the patience to photograph a butterfly."

Period photographs of life during the influenza pandemic of 1918 available at these sites:

• www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/influenzawww.flu.gov/pandemic/history/1918
• http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/

There are great resources of all kinds (music, vintage video footage and photos) at Cat Winters' site.

Here's the trailer, just released today at the Mod Podge Bookshelf. I wish it hinted at the book's rich historical detail.

Till Death Do Us Bark

Klise, Kate. 2011. Till Death Do Us Bark (43 Old Cemetery Road series) Ill. by M. Sara Klise,Boston: Harcourt.
Advance Reader Copy - due on shelves in Spring 2011

I haven't checked in on the 43 Old Cemetery Road series since Book 1, Dying to Meet You. Till Death Do Us Bark is Book 3 in this unique series of what the author writes of as "graphic epistolary mysteries - or some such unmarketable nonsense."  But marketable it is, as this third book in the series (following on the heels of the very successful Regarding the ... series), all of which are illustrated stories told primarily through correspondence.

In Till Death Do Us Bark, young Seymour Hope has now been adopted by writer Ignatius Grumply and his new wife "ghost" writer, Olive C. Spence (not a ghostwriter in the usual sense of the term, but an actual ghost).  Seymour finds Secret, a dog belonging to the recently deceased Noah Breth, and decides to keep it, keeping Secret a secret.  Ignatius and Olive are upset with Seymour for keeping Secret, the poorly kept secret. A further complication is the peculiar way in Noah Breth disbursed his fortune, converting it into several rare, valuable coins left in various locations in his hometown of Ghastly before he passed away.  His children, Kitty and Kanine are fit to be tied.

As you can tell by the amusing names and wordplay, Till Death Do Us Bark is a humorous romp through ghostly letters, "The Ghastly Times," and the many limericks written by the deceased Noah Breth.  The names will keep you laughing ..... librarian, M. Balm, attorney, Rita O'Bitt  ..... the limericks will keep you guessing .....

There's nothing on earth I deplore
Like fighting over money - oh bore!
So mine now jingles,
Whene'er it mingles.
Now do you know what to look for?

..... and the wisdom of the deceased will warm your heart .........

Well, you learn your lesson.  You make a small change. Then you try again the next day.  It sounds simple, I know.  But it's a grand arrangement you have there when you're living.

Another solid entry in the series from the always popular Klise sisters. Great ghostly fun in Ghastly!

Hopefully, Kate Klise can continue to engineer contrivances that require the inhabitants of 43 Cemetery Road to communicate via letters despite living in the same house.

Book 4 will be The Phantom of the Post Office.

Review copy provided by NetGalley.
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Halloween read-alouds for preschoolers

There are so many great Halloween books and scary stories (Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series comes to mind), but sometimes it’s difficult to find books for the littlest of listeners.

Here are some of my favorite read-aloud Halloween books for preschoolers and toddlers.  Enjoy!

Halloween by Harry Behn  -  simple poem, minimal words, spooky illustrations, sets a Halloween mood

Brooms are for Flying by Michael Rex - great for action, get the kids up and moving!

Boo Who? A foldout Halloween adventure by Lola M. Schaefer - fun for tiny tots

Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara - simple wording, easy to follow, great retro-look illustrations!

Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin by Mary Serfozo - rhyming fun extolling the virtues (or flaws) of pumpkins, “Finally on a winding vine he spies a pumpkin fat and fine.”

Boo Who? A spooky lift-the-flap book by Joan Holub - an oldie, but goodie, another choice for tiny tots

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams - another old tale, this one’s a cumulative rhyme, great for participation

Halloween Night by Elizabeth Hatch - another cumulative tale in the same vein as “The House that Jack Built”

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The Keening

LaFaye, A. 2010. The Keening. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed.

Funny thing - I began making the tags for this book before I finished it.  Other than the obvious tags - Maine, rural life, historical fiction, epidemics, ...  I had planned to add - mental illness, autism or spectrum disorder, but I had it all wrong.  It's a matter of perception, and The Keening may change yours.

The Laytons keep to themselves.  Folks in their rural area think Lyza's Pater is crazy - fit only for the "farm" down the road, Elysian Fields, a home for the insane.  Mater's family thinks she's a bit touched as well - must be for marrying Evan Layton.  As for the protagonist, 14-year-old Lyza Layton, she loves both her parents, and cannot imagine life outside her remote, coastal home of 1918 Maine.  The influenza epidemic has hit the area hard and Lyza sees the regular march of keening mourners heading to the cemetery.  She and Pater have survived the influenza, but many others in the community are not so lucky. 

Pater says little.  He carves beautifully intricate faces into wood and then sets them adrift.  He spends hours writing letters, though he has no known friends. Mater takes in sewing and sees to it that Pater eats, sleeps and wears weather-appropriate clothing - difficult chores for a wife whose husband has no concept of time or hunger or other worldly concerns.  Pater talks to angels, writes his letters and disappears into his workshop for hours or days on end, carving, carving, always carving.

But there is love in the Layton household.  Lyza feels it - even from Pater. Despite the scorn and ridicule of local folks, the Laytons are happy in their solitude.  Mater is kind, unflappable and devoted to her husband.  Lyza is enveloped in the cocoon of her family, but Mater encourages her to go to college - to the big city - to Portland. 

"...college will show you a thousand other paths." Are you sorry you took this one?"  Mater startled like I'd poked her. "Not hardly!"  She turned to me, her face pale and waxy in the faint light. "Life's hard, Lyza. Filled with little invisible walls you have to climb over.  The walls surprise you.  Or, who knows, maybe you put them there yourself to keep your parents out, but the climbing's the thrill of it.  The real work.  I love your pater.  I love you.  And this house. My sewing.  And God forgive their stubbornness, my family."

Lyza is afraid, but her only close friend, Jake, entreats her to go.  He will be tied to a life of fishing.  He wants Lyza to see more.  He wants to go with her.  When tragedies strike, Lyza will go to Portland; and she will find the way into her father's world, willing or not.

The Keening is eloquently written with phrasing that captures the mood and period - the remoteness of the community, the sadness of the epidemic, the resourcefulness of Mainers,

I headed down a shoreline road just wide enough for a horse and a body to pass each other.  Trees lined either side.  As darkness filled the road with shadows, I cursed myself for forgetting a lantern.  The moon pitied my foolishness and lit the way.

Perhaps the grand questions that author A. LaFaye hopes to inspire are ones of purpose, the soul, and the afterlife.  The one, however, that comes most immediately to mind is one of perception.  If a home is filled equally with madness and love, is that not a better home than one filled with judgment and sanity?  The Keening is a short and thoughtful book, sure to leave the reader pondering his own grand questions. Recommended reading for Grades 7 and up.

Read an excerpt from The Keening.

The Keening is published by Milkweed Editions, a non-profit publisher with a mission of "making a humane impact on society, in the belief that good writing can transform the human heart and spirit."  This is the first book that I've read from Milkweed Editions.


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Dying to Meet You: 43 Old Cemetery Road

Klise, Kate. 2009. Dying to Meet You: 43 Old Cemetery Road: Book One. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Here’s a new genre for you – “graphic epistolary mystery!” Not sure what that is? Fans of Kate Klise’s, Regarding the …, series will know and so you will you after reading this first in a new series, 43 Old Cemetery Road. Kate Klise and her sister, illustrator M. Sarah Klise, return to their signature format of illustrated, mystery novels written in the form of letters.

Similar to their previous collaborations, Regarding the Fountain, Regarding the Sink, and subsequent titles in that series, Dying to Meet You unfolds through a series of letters. This time, penned by a boy, a ghost, a real estate agent, a literary agent, a writer, and a lawyer, the letters seek to unravel the story of the peculiar circumstances regarding the old Victorian mansion at 43 Old Cemetery Road. Writer, Ignatius Grumply, has rented the mansion for the summer but is unaware that it is already inhabited by the young boy, Seymour Hope and a ghost, Olive C. Spence. Humor abounds in the simple black and white sketches, the characters’ names (Anita Sale, real estate agent, Fay Tality and her dog Mort), and of course, in the epistles,

"P.S. I recognize the name Olive C. Spence. Isn’t she the woman listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for receiving the most rejection slips in history? If memory serves, she wrote something called graphic epistolary mysteries – or some such unmarketable nonsense."

Sometimes profound,

"All I’m saying is that your life is a story, and that you are the main character
of that story. Is your story a comedy or a tragedy? Is it dull? Or is it a
compelling, spine-tingling drama? …each of us is the author of his or her own
life,...if you're telling me that you've changed, I'm pleased at your authorship."

but mostly light-hearted, the new 43 Cemetery Road series will appeal to 4th-6th graders, boys, and especially fans of the Regarding the… series.

The Graveyard Book

I always seem to have trouble when I try to add tags to an embedded Animoto video. Not sure if it's a Blogger glitch or an Animoto proprietary issue. In any case, I'm still an Animoto fan.

So, the tags are here and the video is in the next post.
http://shelf-employed.blogspot.com/2009/02/graveyard-book_24.html

Who's Haunting the White House?

Belanger, Jeff. 2008. Who's Haunting the White House? The President's Mansion and the Ghosts Who Live There. New York: Sterling.

In spite of it's attention-grabbing title, this book is a bit of a disappointment. The book chronicles the history of White House hauntings, from its most famous, the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, to the unnamed British soldier from the War of 1812, and all the ghostly inhabitants in between.

Who's Haunting the White House? walks the reader through a quasi-scientific look at the supernatural. Unfortunately, it does not offer a balanced perspective. The author is steadfast in the belief that ghosts do exist, even offering testimony as to what ghosts do and do not like,

"Sometimes spirits don't like to see their homes changed around too much, and they may let us know this in rather frightening ways."

Apart from Mary Lincoln's testimony (which some may discount because of her well-known peculiar behaviors), the book offers little proof in the supernatural other than passages in President Truman's letters, "the place is haunted, sure as shootin'," second-hand accounts, and several witnesses' accounts of a "cold presence" or "eerie chill."

Who's Haunting the White House? does contain some interesting White House history, as well as drawings, and photographs. A bibliography, index, photo credits, references and acknowledgments follow the rather text-heavy body of the book.

This is a book for would-be ghost hunters or those interested in White House history.

The Seer of Shadows

Avi. 2008. The seer of shadows. New York: Harper Collins.

The prolific Avi has a winner in Seer of Shadows, historical fiction with a decidedly eerie and menacing twist. Horace Carpetine, raised to believe in science and rationalism, has been apprenticed to a photographer in post-Civil War, New York City. When his unscrupulous employer decides to perpetrate a hoax on a grieving mother, a tangled tale of death, deception, abuse and the supernatural "develops," literally, on the glass plates of the photographer's camera.

Horace befriends Pegg, a black servant girl from the deceased's household, and together they confront the inconceivable. The Seer of Shadows is a gripping tale with a strong historical base and the supernatural eeriness of Gaiman's Coraline.