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Summary
Summary
From New York Times bestselling author Lauren DeStefano comes a delightful tale of a girl who can talk to ghosts that's perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman and Holly Black.
Pram Bellamy is special--she can talk to ghosts. She doesn't have too many friends amongst the living, but that's all right. She has her books, she has her aunts, and she has her best friend, the ghostly Felix.
Then Pram meets Clarence, a boy from school who has also lost a parent and is looking for answers. Together they arrive at the door of the mysterious Lady Savant, who promises to help. But this spiritualist knows the true nature of Pram's power, and what she has planned is more terrifying than any ghost.
New York Times bestselling author Lauren DeStefano is beloved by critics and readers alike, and her middle grade debut is lyrical, evocative and not to be missed.
Author Notes
Lauren Destefano won The Thornton Wilder Award for a short story entitled Orange Blood while in high school. She received a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut in 2007. She is the author of the Chemical Garden Trilogy.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her first middle-grade novel, DeStefano (the Internment Chronicles) explores the connection between the human and spirit worlds. Since birth, Pram has been able to communicate with ghosts-her mother hanged herself while pregnant with Pram, and doctors barely saved Pram's life. Shielded from the truth about her mother's death by her caretaker aunts, 11-year-old Pram spends most of her time with books and her protective ghost friend, Felix, until she meets Clarence, a classmate at the school Pram starts attending. They bond over their motherlessness and set out to find Pram's father-a sailor who may not know she exists-and the spirit of Clarence's mother. Lady Savant, a spiritualist, promises to help them, but her true intentions endanger the living and the dead. DeStefano creates a beguiling world through haunting images and descriptions (of spirits, she writes, "There was a certain energy they carried, an urgency to be somewhere that no longer existed, or to do something that could no longer be done"). An eerie, moving story about "that murky place between this world and the one that comes after it." Ages 8-12. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Pram died just before she was born: her pregnant mother committed suicide, but the doctors managed to pull the right strings at the right time and resuscitate the baby. Eleven years later, intelligent and eccentric Pram has no living friends besides her aunts and the residents of the old-age home they run. She can, however, talk to the dead, and her best friend is ghostly Felix, whose jealousy is aroused when Pram finally befriends living classmate Clarence. Grieving for his own dead mother, Clarence persuades Pram to try to communicate with her through spiritualist Lady Savant, who turns out to have an unsavory interest in Prams powers. Urged by Lady Savant to enter the memories of the dead, Pram learns more about her own past, and Felixs, than she bargained for. The voice of this dark but often funny novel is as pragmatic as Pram, matter-of-factly acknowledging truths its characters need to know, even when those truths are unpleasant (and in fact discovering that her mother committed suicide, rather than dying in childbirth as she had been told, helps to ease Prams guilt). Fans of Holly Blacks Doll Bones (rev. 7/13) may well enjoy this creepy, character-based tale. shoshana flax (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
DeStefano's latest and the first in a series is about a girl named Pram, short for Pragmatic, and so named in the hope that she would be unlike her impractical, dreamy mother. Even with such precautions, Pram remains tied to her mom in quite a disturbing way: before Pram was born, her mother committed suicide, passing on to her daughter an ability to see into the world of the dead and converse with ghosts. Unfortunately there are those who see her talent as something to exploit. Soon the girl and her friend Clarence are lured into trouble by a dishonest spiritualist. From there, murder, incarceration in a haunted asylum, and hints that Pram's captor is bent on sucking her soul dry, up the shivery ante. Figuring out how to save herself and access more of the world of in-between sets things up nicely for future ventures. The perfect book to hand to readers looking for the mysterious and spooky.--Cruze, Karen Copyright 2015 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-Pram Bellamy possesses a strange talent: she can see and hear ghosts. Unfortunately, her gift makes fitting in at school a challenge, so she prefers the company of her books and her ghostly friend, Felix. Then Pram meets Clarence, a lonely boy who has also lost his mother, and the two forge a friendship through their common bond. Just as Pram is beginning to embrace a more ordinary life, however, her extraordinary nature puts her in danger. The mysterious Madame Savant is more than willing to kidnap and murder to get what she wants-and she means to use Pram's abilities to fuel her own ambitions. Bereft of friends and family and struggling with powers she's just beginning to understand, Pram has to break free of her captors. DeStefano's story is startlingly dark, with mature themes of death, madness, and suicide coupled with a lively paranormal adventure. The author explores not only the mysteries of the beyond but also the impact of absent parents and the healing powers of friendship. While the emotionally charged narrative is less likely to satisfy those looking for a spooky thrill, more sophisticated readers will appreciate the vivid characters with rich internal lives. VERDICT Readers who enjoyed A.J. Paquette's Rules for Ghosting (Bloomsbury, 2013) and Grave Images by Jenny Goebel (Scholastic, 2013) will want to give this title a try.-Stephanie Whelan, New York Public Library © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Eleven-year-old Pram, bookish and imaginative, befriends ghosts (most importantly Felix, her protective best friend) and also a living boy at school, Clarence, who "sought out the shadows the way that she did," and together they embark on what turns out to be a perilous quest. Readers will be hooked from the first line of this lyrical and suspenseful mystery/fantasy (part thriller too) of a brave and compassionate girl who is "tethered to that murky place between this world and the one that comes after it." Pram and Clarence bond over a shared sense of loss. Pram was told her mother died in childbirth and longs to find her father, a sailor, to figure out where she really belongs. She lives with her two very practical aunts who run the Halfway to Heaven Home for the Ageing. Clarence is searching for his mother's spirit; she died in a car accident, and he's spent "nearly a year in the grayness of grief," and so they go to see Lady Savant, a spiritualist with devious ulterior motives whose powers far surpass anything they could have imagined. In her first work for middle-grade readers, DeStefano artfully concocts a moving and multilayered tale that is an effective mix of genres and tones, at times contemplative and philosophical yet also macabre and psychologically sophisticated. Love, loss, and hope are at the heart of this exciting read. (author's note) (Mystery/fantasy. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
