Just South of Home

Sarah is happy to finally be deemed old enough to stay home with her younger brother Ellis this summer.  They've always had to stay with their grandmother, Mrs. Greene, who thinks summer is about working her grandchildren to exhaustion. 

Sarah was going to spend her days watching documentaries and reading books about the space program while Ellis played video games and built model cars.  Her parents throw a wrench in her plans when her cousin Janie shows up.  Janie has sticky fingers and a sour attitude, and Sarah will be responsible for her for two whole weeks!

After hearing ghost stories about the old Creek Church which was burned down by the Klan, of course, she insists on going.  Sarah is a scientist at heart, but she can't deny the creepy feeling she gets, and things only get worse when they have ghostly visitors in the back yard that night.  The haints have followed the girls home!

Now the kids are in a rush to figure out how to get rid of the haints without getting in major trouble.  Their search will reveal dark truths about the town's past and maybe even a tragedy in their own family tree.  But none of that will help them if they can't figure out what to do before the spirits become too powerful!

Karen Strong's debut novel has plenty of spooky scenes balanced with scenes of daily life in an African American family.  Mrs. Greene does have a miraculous and quick change of heart at the end, but maybe kids won't be so skeptical.  I really liked this book and will recommend it to my students, but that cover is very misleading.  The cover says this is possible a wilderness adventure story.  Umm...if you have ghosts and an abandoned graveyard, you should lead with that!  We are talking about middle schoolers.  I think this will require a lot of hand-selling just because of the cover.