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A review by jenbsbooks
The Ghost Next Door by Wylly Folk St. John
3.0
I read this when I was in elementary or middle school, that's 40 years ago. A peek at the cover (version with the shadowy girl holding the owl) brought back memories and made me want to look into it again. I saw it was available (text only) in KindleUnlimited, and I had a gift subscription to use, so ... I READ this (no audio was available). It was short. My brother's 6th grade reading list is was brought it back to my attention.
This did feel dated. Written in 1971 (I was just a baby) - the actions of the kids (running around freely all day, and all night, especially after one child had drowned/died), the dialog (the kids were quoting Shakespeare, and kept bringing up being born with a "caul" which I had to look up). Even the parents, and the whole Supernatural society and seance ... just not the type of thing I see as normal.
Still, I enjoyed re-reading this. I did have a vague memory of the story, not bad for 40+ years! It had made an impression on me as a little girl. It does leave you (the reader) not quite sure about things (was Miranda there as a ghost?)
On minor thing ... "Sherry came prancing up on a make-believe horse" ... that was something my friends and I did during our childhood. We'd ride imaginary horses home from school, and the only limit on how many horses we could have, was the number of names we could come up with for them. I'm not sure if that was something we came up with on our own, or by chance it was inspired by this book.
There was an afterward included in the Kindle copy, written by a grand-daughter of the author. I'm sure that was not included in my original copy, but it was really interesting to read and made me appreciate the author and the book more than if I didn't have this additional information. I'm glad it was there!
This did feel dated. Written in 1971 (I was just a baby) - the actions of the kids (running around freely all day, and all night, especially after one child had drowned/died), the dialog (the kids were quoting Shakespeare, and kept bringing up being born with a "caul" which I had to look up). Even the parents, and the whole Supernatural society and seance ... just not the type of thing I see as normal.
Still, I enjoyed re-reading this. I did have a vague memory of the story, not bad for 40+ years! It had made an impression on me as a little girl. It does leave you (the reader) not quite sure about things (was Miranda there as a ghost?)
On minor thing ... "Sherry came prancing up on a make-believe horse" ... that was something my friends and I did during our childhood. We'd ride imaginary horses home from school, and the only limit on how many horses we could have, was the number of names we could come up with for them. I'm not sure if that was something we came up with on our own, or by chance it was inspired by this book.
There was an afterward included in the Kindle copy, written by a grand-daughter of the author. I'm sure that was not included in my original copy, but it was really interesting to read and made me appreciate the author and the book more than if I didn't have this additional information. I'm glad it was there!