Crandalls' Castle

Wright, B. R. (2003). Crandalls’ castle. Holiday House. 184 pages. ISBN 9780823417261

Primary genre: horror

Other elements: family, friendship, mystery, suspense

Intended reader age:

Synopsis:

Charli Beland is not too certain about how excited she should be when her mother remarries. Then her Aunt Lilly and Uncle Will take in a distant cousin, Sophia, and her life is thrown even farther from what it once was. Sohpia is not too sure about the changes in her life either. Ever since her mother passed when she was a baby she has been shuttled from home to home, always wary that someone will figure out her secret. Then Uncle Will buys a long abandoned house a couple of blocks over, planning to reopen it as a bed and breakfast, Charli finally finds something to be excited about and Sophia finds something else to worry about. Charli has heard the rumors that a ghost haunts the place and she hopes to be the one to prove it. But, the truth is more frightening that Charlie had ever thought.

Review:

I definitely liked that this story was told from the two girls’ perspectives. It lent a great deal to keeping me interested. It was also interesting because it took the story from two totally different perspectives; Charli was the one willing to believe in the ghost and Sophia was less inclined. This tactic also kept the story from becoming too biased, especially when it came to Charli and her view about her new stepfather. But the interactions and views with Sophia balanced all that out.

I was kind of hoping for the whole ghost aspect to be a bit more fleshed out. There were definitely moments of creepiness in the story. But, the focus seemed to be more on developing the characters and making them relatable and I was invested in the characters. There was great build up to the final ghost scene, but it just fell a little flat for me. I get it, in order to appeal to a fairly large range of young readers the author has to keep it mild.

After reading Wait Till Helen Comes I was expecting the Sophie/ Charli dynamic to play out as it did in that one especially after reading Sophie’s introduction of  “I should have given you a name a long time ago.” So, I was fairly surprised, in a good way, that it did not.