The Doll in the Garden: A Ghost Story

I love the good ending. The story was well written and has a good plot.

My 10 year old daughter has recently gotten into “creepy” mystery books and we randomly picked this one out together. We have read it together (I always read with her to make sure certain stories aren’t too scary to prevent nightmares) we really loved this book. It has a good plot, a little bit of drama as well and some situations that kids can relate to. The short version is, a little girl is moving with her mom to a new home due to her dad sadly passing away. The mom can’t afford much and they end up renting a room from a very mean old lady who turned her house into an apartment. The little girl makes a friend who is convinced the garden is haunted. Weird unexplainable things keep happening and the little girl finds a doll buried in the garden that actually ends up being the old woman’s best friend from her childhood that also passed away. She uncovers why the old woman is so mean and why she had the doll and who it belonged to. Good story to read with your child if they like mysteries.

I bought this book for my granddaughter who loves spooky books. She loved it!

Nice

So, for Mary Downing Hahn fans, this one is not creepy and scary, as much as it is sort of bittersweet and supernatural.It's not a very long read, but it has any number of classic Hahn traits - the heroine is of a familiar type, the elderly person who knows something but won't tell, the younger kid being dragged along - and it's enjoyable. I think it works better in this format than it would as a full-length novel.I also LOVE Snowball the cat, and his role in the whole mystery. I thought it was beautifully done.There do seem to be a lot of typos/scan errors in the book, but they aren't too distracting. It looks more like a OCR scan issue than actual lack of editing.

This book must have been for one of my kids book reports. Grade 4-7-- A young girl helps her cantankerous elderly landlord to resolve a childhood act that caused the woman lifelong guilt. Ashley follows a white cat back in time and meets Louisa, a girl who is dying and who longs for her beloved doll--a doll that Ashley and her friend Kristi have found buried in Miss Cooper's garden. In the end Ashley, Kristi, and Miss Cooper visit Louisa; the woman is able to make am mends with her childhood friend, and Ashley begins to accept her father's death. Hahn's portrayal of crotchety Miss Cooper is expertly drawn, giving vivid insight into why she acts and lives as she does. Ashley, her widowed mother, and Kristi are also fully realized characters. When Hahn sticks to her story, it moves along at a steady, scary clip. However, when she lapses into lengthy descriptions of flowers, birds, and landscape, she slows the pace of the story rather than creates the intended atmosphere. Ashley's first-person narrative often gets bogged down in a flowery adult voice, particularly in the descriptions: "As still as the cherub behind me, I watched the leaves sway in the breeze. Sunlight and shadow mottled the ground, and the weeds whispered to themselves, lulling me like distant voices of children at play." Still, it's an imaginative ghost story, fairly predictable, but with a completely satisfying ending.

My ten-year-old daughter and I loved this book! The story has so many elements that come together to make it a great read - mystery, conflict, good old-fashioned villain who eventually makes good, friendship, love, grief, and the perfect degree of thrill for the age group it is intended for. Throw in a couple cats and a lovely ending and what more can you ask for. We hated to put this book down.The book does a particularly admirable job tackling the issues of death and grief, and also makes the reader consider the thought of a spirit world so perhaps this might make younger, more sensitive readers uncomfortable. The writing makes for a descriptive and realistic read despite the ghost story, but there are moments of adult language poking through 10-year-old Ashley's thoughts and I did think the sudden, seemingly complete turnaround of Ms. Cooper was a bit unusual. Nonetheless, the author has created a delightful book that will haunt the mind and heart and leave the reader with warm fuzzies in the end.

I am, of course, way over the target age for Mary's books. However, I really enjoy them and share them with the target audience. I never share a book with a kid without reading it first, just in case. I read Mary's because I enjoy the stories, too - that's just my excuse!She has a talent for seamlessly enduring characters and story lines that also have valuable lessons. Her material teaches morals, sympathy, empathy and so much more. They are also stories that can be very important for kids going through something similar to what the characters are enduring in the story line. In this case moving to a new location after the loss of a parent and all the things that go with that. It's a neat little mystery and ghost story all rolled into one about struggle, friendship and doing what's right.This story does not disappoint. It is a five star read from a five star author.

Packaging is very good. Quality of print, paper, cover design also good. My book's cover design is different.This story is suitable for young readers. (8 --14 Years)

Good reading