  | Ghosts come rising Author: Perry, Adam | |
| Price: $23.78 | ||
Summary:
After their parents' deaths, siblings Liza and John Carroll are placed in the care of their uncle, a traveling con artist who scams the grieving with fraudulent spirit photographs, until they arrive at a Spiritualist commune where the barrier between the living and the dead is very thin.
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (07/15/22)
Booklist (08/01/22)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 08/01/2022 Twelve-year-old Liza Carroll helps her adoptive uncle, Mr. Spencer (“a liar and a fraud”), create fake photographic images of deceased loved ones using cotton, newsprint, and a double exposure of the film. The pair, along with Liza’s sickly younger brother, John, arrive at the Silver Star Society, a Spiritualist community in rural Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1920 to con its true believers. There Liza begins seeing “shadows” of the departed who become increasingly menacing as they broach the thin veil between the worlds of the living and the dead, seeking to claim John. Perry deftly teeters between suspenseful and scary with an immersive story set during a relatively unexplored era in middle-grade fiction. Although Liza admonishes readers early, “Don’t believe a thing I say,” the photography scam frames careful revelations about the lies Liza tells herself and others. A helpful note introduces spiritualism, and striking photographic images appear throughout. This gripping paranormal story should be an easy sell for R. J. Palacio’s Pony (2021) and future fans of the Miss Peregrine series. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.
