The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall

I finished reading Mary Downing Hahn's "The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall" last week.  I love when I can identify the cover art's origin within the pages of a book.  It can be chilling to take a second, closer look at the cover and this book is an excellent example of that.  Mary Downing Hahn is known for her ability to tell a ghost tale for children and do so appropriately and well.  She scares your socks off without making it too difficult to sleep at night.  But her characters often have difficulty sleeping at night.  Last summer, I listened to "Wait Til Helen Comes" on audiobook in my car and had trouble getting out of the car for wanting to find out what would happen next.  Likewise, in "The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall," I didn't want to put the book down.  I liked how it was set in the past, whereas "Wait Til Helen Comes," "All the Lovely Bad Ones," and "Deep and Dark and Dangerous" (booktalks coming soon) were all set in the present with ghostly visitors from the past.  When our school merged grades four and five last year, Mary Downing Hahn was on the list of authors suggested by the middle school librarian to add to our collection, but I wasn't yet familiar with her work so I hadn't added many titles just yet.  I had "Wait Til Helen Comes" in the collection already and this past summer added "The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall."  Consequently, TGCH is also a featured book at this fall's upcoming book fair.  Our fair will begin on Thursday, November 10th.  Any shoppers who would like to shop our fair online can do so beginning on the 11th as well and running all the way until Monday, November 28th.  I'm hoping to hook students with "The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall."