Pleasing the Ghost

Overview

Ever since his father died, Dennis has been seeing ghosts. Lots of ghosts. They blow in on the breeze, visit for a while, and fly off again. But one night the ghost of his Uncle Arvie floats in the window. And Arvie wants to do more than chat. Together, they find a lost love letter, finish a special painting, and dig up buried treasure--all for Arvie's widow, Julia. Dennis loves having his uncle around again, but there's still one ghost he's longing to see. Perhaps on the next ghost wind . . . Master storyteller Sharon Creech has woven a wonderfully funny, romantic tale. Arvie's eccentric antics and wonderful word play keep the reader laughing, but at its tender heart, the story reveals the holes left in our lives when we lose the ones we love.

Editorial Reviews

This simultaneously sensitive and ridiculous romp by a Newbery-winning author (Walk Two Moons) begins as spunky nine-year-old Dennis explains that ghosts keep visiting him in his bedroom?"a constant parade of ghosts, but never the one I really want." Pining for his late father, Dennis instead finds himself host to a motley crew of spirits, in particular his Uncle Arvie. Arvie wants Dennis to help his widow, Aunt Julia, discover the gifts and money he has left hidden for her in his house. Unfortunately, a stroke he suffered before his death prevents him from finding the appropriate vocabulary to convey his meaning. Kids will enjoy deciphering Arvie's speech: "Good carpet, Dinosaur!" translates as "Good morning, Dennis!"; Aunt Julia's oily suitor and Billy, the class bully, are "beany boogers." Dennis's much-missed father?his "pepperoni"?never does appear, but the boy finds common ground and a possible friendship with Billy, also fatherless. Arvie's earnest affection for Julia and Dennis makes him a role model as well as a clown, and Creech's attention to nuances of feeling grounds this light tale in emotional truth. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Author Information

Bio of Sharon Creech

I was born in South Euclid, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and grew up there with my noisy and rowdy family: my parents (Ann and Arvel), my sister (Sandy), and my three brothers (Dennis, Doug and Tom). For a fictional view of what it was like growing up in my family, see Absolutely Normal Chaos. (In that book, the brothers even have the same names as my own brothers.) Our house was not only full of us Creeches, but also full of friends and visiting relatives. In the summer, we usually took a trip, all of us piled in a car and heading out to Wisconsin or Michigan or, once, to Idaho. We must have been a very noisy bunch, and I'm not sure how our parents put up with being cooped up with us in the car for those trips. The five-day trip out to Idaho when I was twelve had a powerful effect on me: what a huge and amazing country! I had no idea then that thirty-some years later, I would recreate that trip in a book called Walk Two Moons. One other place we often visited was Quincy, Kentucky, where my cousins lived (and still live) on a beautiful farm, with hills and trees and swimming hole and barn and hayloft. We were outside running in those hills all day long, and at night we'd gather on the porch where more stories would be told. I loved Quincy so much that it has found its way into many of my books--transformed into Bybanks, Kentucky. Bybanks appears in Walk Two Moons and Chasing Redbird and Bloomability. Bybanks also makes a brief appearance (by reference, but not by name) in The Wanderer.

Bio of Stacey Schuett

No bio available for Stacey Schuett.

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Additional Info

Imprint

HarperCollins e-books

Filesize

1.64 MB

Number of Pages

96

eBook ISBN

9780061786730