Diverse Perspectives - Ghost Girl

Ghost Girl

Ghost Girl

 Written by Delia Ray

Cover Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

Published by Houghton Mifflin

Clarion Books

Copyright 2003

216 pages

Genre: Diverse Perspectives
A/R Grade Level: 5.4

Ghost Girl is a tale of fiction that has been written with many specific real events woven through the storyline.  This book is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains during Herbert Hoover's presidency.  This time frame was also while the Great Depression was taking place.  The characters in the story have a dialect that is unique to this geographic area and are mostly unaware of how things in the outside world are becoming bleaker during President Hoover's time in office simply because they are so poor already.  The book portrays the people of the Blue Ridge Mountains as hard-working and self sufficient people who sometimes suffer in silence while carrying on with their daily lives.  

The main character April wants to attend the new school that is coming but her mother is not going to allow it until her maternal grandmother steps in and intervenes.  The story shares April's experiences from age 11 through her teenage years.  Many important events take place for April throughout the book.  She has a difficult relationship with her mother, forms a special bond with her teacher, has a distant but loving relationship with her father and although she doesn't have many friends at school she finds true friendship in an unlikely place by the end of the book.  

The author does an excellent job of bringing real events into a fictional story in an entertaining way.  This book could be used alongside a social studies unit about the time of the Great Depression and/or Herbert Hoover's time as President of the United States to increase interest from students in the subject matter.  It would be very easy to use this book as a way to get students engaged in learning about history and how historical events do, in fact, affect ordinary people just like them.

I would also like to note that the cover illustration is excellent and I feel that it would spark interest in readers considering choosing this book.  It is an accurate depiction of how the girl in the story is described and why she has the nickname, "Ghost Girl".