Welcome to a great read aloud! You are about to meet a character, Alice Cannoli-Potchnik, who will make you believe fear cannot contain you and that helping others to settle their loose ends no matter how painful is worth every minute and every challenge.
Alice's parents have just been handed the news that they are being moved again - by the college Professor Cannoli works for. The college loves to move them because Alice and her father rehab the houses brilliantly and then the college can sell the fixed up homes for a profit and make some money. This time though Professor Cannoli refuses to allow her husband and daughter to take on the job of fixing all the problems in this new house. No, this time the college is going to have to knuckle under.
But, no one figured on the house next door. Alice who is left to her own devices most days wanders over next door and finds three friends to be - Danny, Ivy and Mugwort - they are ghosts - and they have Unfinished Business that keeps them from moving on to becoming Settled. (Who doesn't have unfinished business that keeps them from moving on to becoming settled?) Well, once Alice understands that the are three ghosts, Mugwort, Danny and Ivy, who need her help, she is up to the challenge and ready to find a way to finish the unfinished business left from each life. Talk about plucky. This girl is a champ. Nothing frightens her and nothing stops her.
You might need to get out the tissues if you plan to read this in one sitting. This is a glorious story of courage and of parents who care and who have given their daughter years of tools to use as she tackles one problem after another.
Three souls who are living in the House next door need to make amends for something from their lives as human beings on this planet. Alice is determined to make it possible for them to make their amends. She is spunky and smart and knows enough about enough to fight through problem after problem.
What a testimonial to family, to parents, and to great great great great aunts who made it possible for you to be alive today. Women rock! Dads rock! Girls named Alice rock! The House rocks! (Truly you need to meet the House.)
A story filled with ghosts, filled with Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, touched by mistakes and good intentions gone bad. I am so very glad I met Danny and Ivy and Mugwort and Professor Cannoli and Mr. Potchnik and ... Alice. Don't miss it.
240 pages 978-0063258075 Ages 8-12
Keywords: ghosts, paranormal, fantasy,, self reliance, girls and women, parents, family, humor, multigenerational, making amends, 8 year old, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, read aloud to 8-11
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
*********
In this not-so-scary ghost story from Jacqueline Davies, bestselling author of the Lemonade War series, quirky, tool-wielding Alice Cannoli-Potchnik begins to repair the dilapidated mansion next door—only to discover the old house is home to ghosts, and they need mending, too!
Home is where the heart is. But can a house have a heart of its own?
Ten-year-old Alice is moving for the eleventh time.
She’s lived in so many houses, each more broken than the last, that home to Alice is nothing more than a place you fix and then a place you leave. After all, who needs a permanent home when you’re a whiz at fixing things?
But when Alice arrives at her new home, she can’t take her eyes off the house next door, the stately dark house that hulked in the dimming light. The once-grand mansion, now dilapidated and condemned, beckons Alice; it's the perfect new repair job!
As Alice begins to restore the House to its former splendor, she senses strange presences. Is there a heartbeat coming from the House’s walls? Is someone looking at her? Soon she realizes she’s not alone. Three ghosts have been watching, and they need Alice’s help to solve their unfinished business.
Will Alice be able to unravel the mysteries of the House and find her forever home . . . before it’s too late?---from the publisher
