Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh is the first book in a semi-new series by Ellen Oh.
Harper Raine will be going into 7th grade in the fall, but this summer she needs to adjust to leaving her beloved NYC behind for the somewhat less hustling suburban streets of DC. What’s worst is the house her family has moved into seriously gives her the creeps.
Hot spots, cool spots, weird dreams and creeping sensations all make Harper feel unwelcome and unwanted. And when he brother starts acting strangely, she knows something is seriously wrong.
Battling her own traumas and memory lapses, Harper must uncover what is wrong with her new home before it is too late.
I love a good scary movie but I’m not usually running out to get a scary book, but I stumbled across this one and decided to give it a go to up my repertoire of spooky reads for kids. And it was pretty good. For me, it wasn’t overly suspenseful and Harper tried to rationalize a lot of the spookiness away, so the “I’m scared along with the character” feeling, wasn’t totally there. Which is good if you are not really that in to being scared.
What I did really like about this novel was the relationship between Harper and her grandmother and the nods to multiculturalism in the book. I also thought the memory loss and it’s slow return, was handled quite well.
There’s a nice build up for future novels and I believe the second one is already out with the third pending. Overall, this was a good read and probably fun for 4-6th graders. This one gets 4 stars from me.
That’s all for now!
-M-