Ghost Witch
Betty Ren Wright
Scholastic
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***
DESCRIPTION: Jenny and her mother have just inherited a large Victorian house, owned by the strange old Miss Nagle. She lived alone with her cat, Rufus, until her
death, and every kid in town just knows she was some sort of witch. Jenny never listened to those stories, and her mom always told her what a nice woman Miss Nagle really was.
Besides, everyone knows there's no such thing as witches - they're as made-up as ghosts.
When Jenny goes to feed Rufus, her best friend Chris in tow, strange things start happening. Doors open and close on their own, and things seem to be creeping around in the
dark. Surely the house is haunted, maybe by the late Miss Nagle herself! Maybe she really was a witch, after all! Now, Jenny's mother wants to move out of their cramped
apartment and into Nagle's empty house... but does the former resident want them to move in?
REVIEW: This wasn't really a bad story. It's spooky, especially for younger readers, with snakes and giant spiders and other scary happenings. Jenny is a good hero.
It's well-paced and decently written, but the plot resolution not only comes out of the blue, but violates one of the basic rules of ghost hauntings; this drug the rating
down. I also got annoyed at a problem that's really starting to bug me about kids' books. It's this insistence that witches were old hags who cast curses on everyone. This one
even contains lines saying that witches don't exist. That's about as honest and valid as saying Gypsies don't exist, or pirates don't exist. They did and still do, just not as
popular stereotype portrays them. What people mean to say (I hope) is that those hunch-backed, green-skinned, warty old evil hags of stereotype and legend don't exist. They
were demonized long ago by a church that sought to belittle and condemn those who didn't follow their doctrines, much the same way they once likened Muslims to Satan-worshippers
during the Crusades. That witches don't exist is a statement based on outright lies about those of non-Christian belief, and it's high time we stopped perpetuating them. I'm
getting increasingly annoyed by this, myself. If these authors made the distinction by calling them "evil old hags" or "black witches," I wouldn't be as ticked off, but they
never do (except in instances like Harry Potter, and even then it seems that they have to justify a witch's existence by giving them inborn magical powers.) Someone really
ought to write a kids/young adult book in which witches can be good without being supernaturally empowered (which they aren't, any more than followers of other religions are, by
sheer virtue of practicing their religion, specially gifted.) Yeah, I suppose I shouldn't let it bug me, but it does. But I digress...
In the end, Ghost Witch might make for a decent little scary story, but it hardly sticks in the memory - and even a grade-school kid might realize that the ending comes
out of nowhere.
You might also enjoy:
The Nina Tanleven books (Bruce Coville, YA Fiction - Two girls investigate hauntings)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, Fiction - A cold-hearted miser has a fateful encounter with Christmas spirits)
Ghost Ship (Deitlof Reiche, YA Fiction - A girl at a seaside tourist town uncovers a centuries-old mystery)
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