Ghost Ship

Ghost Ship
Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Illustrator: Wendell Minor
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN-10: 1416935142
ISBN-13: 978-1416935148

Prolific and first rate author Mary Higgins Clark has turned her pen to a children’s picture book and the result is fantastic.

Ghost Ship is the story of Thomas, a 9-year old boy who is visiting his grandmother on Cape Cod. His grandmother lives in a 300-year old house above the beach with steps leading down to the shore. The house was built by Andrew Hallet, a great sea captain and an ancestor of Thomas. His picture hangs on the wall in the house and Thomas often wonders about him.

One day after a storm, Thomas wanders down to the beach and finds an ancient buckle in the sand. As he dusts it off and wonders about it, a ghost of a boy appears and speaks to him. That ghost is Silas, a cabin boy to the very Andrew Hallet Thomas has so often wondered about. Silas speaks, using thee and thou, which I thought was a very realistic touch given the fact that he was alive in 1690. He tells Thomas of life in his time and how hard it was. He speaks with pride of Andrew Hallet and of how he and the other boys of his town banded together to set a huge fire that eventually saved Hallet’s boat from thieves.

Thomas has many questions for Silas as well and Silas is eager to tell his story. I thought the book was lovely and interesting. It brings back a lost time and is so vividly told that you can almost smell the sea air.

The vivid and colorful illustrations by Wendell Minor are amazing and make me think of those great, sweeping oil paintings of seascapes, sailing ships and storms. Each page is like visiting a museum. The book is simply beautiful.

I think Ghost Ship will be a favorite of any young child that loves the sea. Adults too will find it highly readable and a visual delight.


Book description from the publisher:

"I am so pleased to have written my first children's book and to have my dear friend Wendell Minor illustrate it. I thought it would be a daunting project, but with six grandchildren and eleven stepgrandchildren, I've been telling stories to children for a long time."

-- Mary Higgins Clark

Thomas loved his summer visits to his grandmother's on Cape Cod. He spent hours wondering about the sailing ships of the past and imagining their stories. He dreamed of being on a sailing ship himself. One afternoon after a night of terrible thunderstorms, Thomas finds, deep in the sand, a weathered, old-fashioned belt buckle. When he picks it up, a boy his own age, Silas Rich, who was a cabin boy on a ship called the Monomoy that sailed almost 250 years ago, appears. Suddenly the world of sailing ships is very near as Silas tells his tale.

Beloved and bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark tells a story of mystery and adventure that will transport readers to a time and place beyond their imaginings in her first book for children. Wendell Minor's inspired paintings make a time long ago very real.

Text copyright © 2007 by Mary Higgins Clark
Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Wendell Minor

A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama

Title: A Drowned Maidens Hair : A Melodrama
Author: Laura Amy Schlitz
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763629308

"On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse, singing, The Battle Hymn of the Republic." What a great way to begin a story! I was hooked from that first sentence.

Maud Flynn is a difficult girl. She excels at getting into trouble at the orphanage and is considered plain. She doesn’t have the curly blond ringlets or an agreeable nature, so she is overwhelmed to learn she has been adopted by the mysterious Hawthorne sisters. She is swept away by the mercurial Hyacinth Hawthorne and her sister Judith to their house far away. She is bought new clothes, given treats and books all before she gets to her destination.

What follows is an enormously entertaining and unusual tale. Maud is drawn into the “family business”. The Hawthorne sisters are spiritualists, mediums that make their money by holding fraudulent séances. There is a rich and grieving mother who is willing to give the first medium who can produce the ghost of her lost child a great deal of money and the sisters need Maud to play the dead child. Since no one can know that she exists, she becomes a “secret child”, not allowed to go out or make noise, or even to be in the populated parts of the house. She is lonely, love-starved and bored in this new and mysterious life. Maud makes friends with Muffet, the deaf housekeeper and they grow close. The mysteries grow as does Maud’s conscience though she gets drawn deeper and deeper into the scheme.

I loved this book and was completely caught up in the tale. It brings to life the time period as well as the fascination of the time with the spiritualists and mediums. It got me thinking about Harry Houdini, snake oil salesmen and the like.

Maud Flynn is a great character who just exudes life and almost leaps off the pages and into your home. She’s complex and multi-layered as are all the characters in the book. There is so much going on that you can hardly wait to turn the page. Highly recommended!