User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars. Read in a day, this was a compelling, fast paced ghost story with some great characters and an interesting plot.
A 10 year old girl drowned in her Aunts pond and years later her father returns with a new daughter, Sherry to visit his sister. Having been deeply distressed by the accident he hasn't spoken of his loss to his wife or his daughter who are totally unaware of her existence. Sherry soon starts to play that she has an imaginary friend and she shocks everyone with some of the details her imaginary friend provides.
This had some wonderfully eerie parts, our dog pushed open the door suddenly whilst I was reading this which really made me jump and my daughter laugh. There are some very good characters, we really liked the older girls, who set out to investigate this mystery. Their relationship with each other, their younger siblings, and adults were well observed. We enjoyed some moments of humour, especially the girls attempts to eavesdrop on a seance and the comical depiction of the spiritualist. There was some very funny and accurate descriptions of how the medium was supposedly contacting the spirit world. I thought the 70s style comical drawings didn't suit the tone of the book, although there were comical scenes, the majority of the book was a mystery story and ghost story which didn't go well with this style.
This is a book I would have absolutely loved as a child.
Read on open library.
Rating: really liked it
I read this book at least fifty times when I was younger, it was one of my favorite books back then and thanks to the internet, I was able to order myself a "new" copy. I read it again in a day and remember why I loved it so much. The story is about two neighborhood friends who become involved with the mystery of the ghost next door. Miranda was a young girl who drowned in the pond in the back of her Aunt Judith's property. Miranda's Dad has remarried and had another daughter, Sherry, who knows nothing about Miranda. Sherry is visiting her Aunt for the summer when suddenly odd things begin happening. Is it all coincidence or is Sherry communicating with the ghost of Miranda?
This is a young adult novel, I loved it as a pre-teen and I love it just as much now. The story has just enough of a hint of the mysterious to completely satisfy the reader. Love it!
Rating: really liked it
I knew I read and loved this book as a kid but couldn't remember a single detail about it. Unlike all the people who vaguely recall
something about a ghost and a blue rose or
a stone owl with "love in its eyes" or
the ghost of a half-sister who drowned but can't place the title, I've always remembered that I once had a favorite book named The Ghost Next Door (and Wylly Folk St. John is such an awesome name, how could I ever forget that?) but I couldn't for the life of me tell you what that book was about, except maybe...some kids? Who live...next door? To a ghost?
But I digress. I just read it again for the first time in over 25 years and oh, wow. THIS IS MY FAVORITE KIND OF BOOK. And I guess it always has been. In addition to the aforementioned blue rose and stone owl it has ghosts and psychics and mysterious happenings AND skepticism and psychology and a plucky young heroine who finds answers IN BOOKS and in the end you're not really entirely 100% sure if everything can be logically explained or if there really is something
supernatural going on. If all that isn't enough, it's illustrated by the GENIUS Trina Schart Hyman. There are even references to Shakespeare and
The Three Faces of Eve and Edgar Allen Poe.
I've moved this one to my Favorites shelf.
Rating: really liked it
One of my favorite books from my childhood. I should bring it home for Madeleine to read.
Rating: really liked it
I read this book over and over. I can't remember exactly how the story goes-I think a girl is staying with her aunt and she and her friend find things left behind by the ghost of a girl who drowned? I remember a scene with an owl made out of cement and another where the ghost girl leaves behind carnations she's dyed blue and the girls try to find out what happened to the ghost girl. Loved it.
Rating: really liked it
Loved this when I was young. I'd like to hunt down a copy and read it again.
Rating: really liked it
This is a middle-grade horror/mystery (moreso a mystery) book from the 70's, and it was excellent.
Our main character, Lindsey, is a 13 year old girl who sets out to disprove (or prove, if it turns out to be true) that the ghost of Miranda (a young girl who drowned) is haunting their neighbor's house and communicating with her stepsister. Some of the adult characters are skeptical about Sherry's (Miranda's would-be stepsister) new "imaginary" friend named Miranda, and a seance is conducted to try and communicate with her spirit. The possibility of a ghost, of course, causes complications and grief for some of the adults and Lindsey and her friend Tammy take on the responsibility of trying to unravel the matter.
I honestly had no idea what I was getting into with this book. I figured it was geared towards the younger audience based on page count and the cover - but I didn't know much else. I have to say this was a very pleasant surprise!
The narrative voice was very charming and amusing; in fact, all of the kid characters were quite convincing and often say goofy things that kids do. I chuckled at least a couple times.
Taking place in Georgia, the characters have a bit of a southern accent and the dialogue as well as the narrative isn't always grammatically correct - which added to the personality of the story, for me. Also, you do really feel that this book was written in the 70's, for better or worse. I really enjoyed it, but some might find it a bit dated.
The mystery had me in its grip and I honestly couldn't predict whether or not anything supernatural was going on or if it was all phony. Without spoiling too much, it had sort of an ambiguous ending which I dug - I thought it fit perfectly given the nature of the story.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it to others who still enjoy reading children's books, particularly children's horror and mysteries.
I give this one a solid 4⭐
Rating: really liked it
I see Wylly Folk St. John was publishing before I was born. Having the pleasure now, I realize she shares the high calibre of pre & post 1970s authors like Richard Peck. It's a blessing to find long ago titles on discount tables. To my delight, I discovered I own another Wylly story: "The Mystery Book Mystery" (1976)! There’s a special touch to pre-1980s mysteries: less distraction with gadgets and being more in tune with surroundings. Nothing dates these novels except language and courtesy. The girls in "The Ghost Next Door" (1971) could be teens today: playing compact discs instead of records, still keeping an eye on younger brothers.
I issued three stars because there is far less ghost involvement and fear than we glean from the synopsis. The soft cover portrait especially, demonstrates heavy haunting that isn't the case. If you know that, there is plenty of hinting and wondering that would be freaky in real life. The melancholy of a lost family member, the sensation of old belongings, are always exotic touches. I always find the very best ones in the world are mysteries about anything at all, except murders. Deciphering notes, finding artifacts, secret places.... less drastic scenarios are exceedingly original and we connect with them much more deeply. They aren’t police matters: everyday mysteries are up to us!
Extraordinary writing ability makes this book a gem. The author phrases things superbly, with the dialogue entirely feasible. ‘Lindsay’ and ‘Tammy’ are refreshingly mature: best friends adapted to being different. There are sketches throughout depicting characters exactly as you expect, especially the medium! I wonder who drew them. A tertiary character driving the book, the neighbour’s niece ‘Sherry’, is the most unusual narrative I’ve ever seen. It works! It is she who experiences phenomena. The protagonists observe.
Rating: really liked it
Still Remember This From the 70s….
I loved THE GHOST NEXT DOOR in grade school, and it is dated, but it’s still a pretty good supernatural children’s book, nonetheless.
Twelve-year-old Lindsey Morrow lives near Atlanta, where the houses are surrounded by large, wooded lots and many of the neighbors are doctors of one kind or another. She and her best friend, Tammy, begin to investigate when strange things occur around Sherry Alston - a visiting niece of their next-door neighbor. Is Sherry really communicating with the spirit of her sister who drowned in the pond thirteen years ago? Finding the owl with love in its eyes will lead to the answer.
Rating: really liked it
I first read this book when I was a child, in grade school, and fell in love with it right away. I read and reread the book voraciously until I had to return it to the school library. After that I couldn't find the book, and when I tried to look for it anywhere all I came up with is a book with the same name in "Goosebumps" (I grew up prior to the invention of the internet).
Thankfully, with the help of the all knowing internet, I was able to find the book again and cherish it over and over.
The story is interesting, spooky, and intriguing, even if it was made for children. An absolute must.
Rating: really liked it
This book was one of my favorites when I was a girl, and I've just finished reading it aloud to my daughter. It was a joy to rediscover it with her, and the book is just as appealing now as it was over 30 years ago.
Rating: really liked it
This author, whom I'd scarcely heard of before, as now come up two days in a row.
Rating: really liked it
I called This book “The Ghost Next Door” the plague in my mind, its not because it’s a bad book, to the contrary its an excellent book, but I kind of struggled with it, I tried to find it everywhere but couldn’t, then it popped up on amazon and I ordered it, I was captivated by the cover of a girl holding an object floating on water, it felt strange, unique, intriguing and sad, something to look for to.
First I got it, I read 107 pages, then for some reason I left it for so long to the extent I forgot some details, and I am not the kind of the reader who skips details, so I decided to start reading it again, and I stopped again at 75 pages, and again I lost some details, but this time I wondered it’s a young adults story, the details can be important, but a short story nevertheless, so I kept going despite the minor forgetfulness, and I managed to finish the book eventually, excellent work this piece of art.
It requires real talent to bring up ghost stories with children, as often such stories are by nature gloomy and scary, however, willy seems capable of merging the world of a child’s imagination with the possibilities of the supernatural.
It is a very intelligent story, as it shows you how a ghost could have different meanings to different social classes and statuses, to a mother or a father or a friend or a curious child, to a grieving father or a delusional relative.
The story has a very simple social structure of aunts and fathers and brothers, but each has a role to play in the tale, as an adult reader you can see what the writer intends to do with each, but for a younger audience the story tailors around their ears without them noticing how skillfully the writer is gathering the story in a tightly net, the father is there or not there, secrets, goings and comings, its all for a purpose, nothing is left for chance, for example, you can say “we can safely investigate the house because the family will leave on a picnic on Sunday”, for a child he’ll say that’s a good opportunity to investigate the house as the inhabitants will be out, however, for an adult reader, you can conclude that the only way to investigate the house is to let the inhabitants go out, so it is an intended math rather than coincidental, but who has the eye to differ the purpose of each.
A very intelligent approach for the young audience, especially for a tale of ghosts, it’s not a scary tale, it’s in fact in the form of a mystery, and you move from chapter to another to see how the story unfolds, and you do get answers, it doesn’t leave you guessing for long, willy is very talented, I wish more of her books are available and republished.
However, upon reading the book, you realize the writer has a very vivid imagination towards how would a child behave in facing the unfortunate or the unfamiliar, she seems completely capable of understanding how a child will act, think and behave, albeit it can be a little imaginative, for a child might be a bit less gullible and more logical in behavior, but for literary purposes it is suitable, at the end the book is for the young minds, its meant to sweep into their young minds and draw the curtains of the play.
You see, children’s intelligence is often under estimated, at once we think they are too intelligent and at times we think they are too young to understand, and Willy seems capable to balance both, at one end we have one child who’s skeptical about the existence of ghosts driven by a pragmatic father with scientific brain nature, and the other is conflicted between do ghosts exists or not, and in their dialogue with each other you seem to notice that the stream of story telling from the mind of the writer to the children in the book is mildly filtered, in other words, the dialogue has the attitude of a child, which is filtered in such manner to suit their psychology, understanding and behavior of children, while the concepts discussed are mainly simplified but can be very conflicting for young children understanding, and this I believe might be intentional by the writer maybe due to her understanding of how children are often more intelligent than we think.
The writer seems capable in my opinion of making it a much more realistic story, but it’ll be a pure horror story, and certainly not as suitable to the young mind instead of soft literature to excite the mind, in my opinion she is capable and has a good heart to weave the story in ways that suits the young mind, yet it gets darker towards the end and that is a story of its own when it comes to how the writer is capable of gradually raising the young mind awareness towards adult affairs even though it has to do with ghosts.
But then things do get dark, a change of pace you might say, meddling with the occult or dealing with ghost could have consequences, especially when you read a book through the imagination of a child, you have no guarantees whether ghosts do exist or not, and then suddenly strange and terrifying events take place and there you know the write is actually capable of changing the pace and making things sound real or engulfing the young mind with ghostly theaters.
It’s a mystery book at the end, you can’t know what’s happening until you reach the end.
Anyway my reason for reading the story is for the experience I gain from it, a book from the 70s experienced again in modern times, you need to see how life was lived back then, young children meddling with affairs, how they think, how simple were their lives, how important little things are for them, it is the most important factors to reflect such manners in literature, how kind and peaceful children are, and how soft are their hearts and how caring they can be all the way until adulthood and joining the army to kill innocents under the orders of a white-haired rigid idiot.
This what happens now does it, they were all children one day were they, studying, going to school, learning, playing hide and seek and then violence, for peace or hate, still violent, and this is a deep flaw in our yet to learn cultures.
Child upbringing is the more important aspect in the human condition, as I usually say, nothing is more dangerous than a child who never grew.
Mostly such young minds in the body of adults are deeply insecure, unequipped to deal with serious manners and life diversity, they always feel less than others, so they use force and trickery to undermine others for factors they’re yet to understand, when I was young I thought adult knows it all, but when I grew older I realized they are but children talking politics, they never grew and they are highly insecure.
And to fix this problem, you need a highly educated child, not with knowledge, but with a proper mindset build, we teach them laws, but never hows and whys, we can tell them, learn child, negative and negative is positive, the child takes it as a rule, and given the type of psychology he is born with, he could struggle with it, but when you break it down to him or her, he understands why negative and negative is positive.
So what I am trying to say is we need to CAREFULLY work on making our children equipped to deal with life in a gradual manner so they become proper functioning members of society, and that’s an educated person, the rest is but knowledge, and if we didn’t educate the child in a manner to make him a suitable positive peaceful society candidate, than we will create a child (young or adult) who will struggle between doing and not doing, mostly driven by doing and conflicted by laws of not doing, not capable of knowing how to analyze the manner or how to solve his affair, except with aggression or giving in to pity instincts.
This book deeply focuses on such children psychology, a lot of touches from an expert in my opinion, the book has lots of details and a weaved story with mathematics precision, it’s an interactive story, you need to be aware of the details, when a child says, remember when this happened or when she said that, its carefully calculated, if you don’t pay proper attention, you can’t keep up with the story.
Though it’s a young adult story, its exceptionally well written and very thick, a lot of details, very dense and loads of speculations.
A lot of illogical affairs that requires a rational explanation, the story seems to be headed towards logical explanations anyways, but the writer is skilled enough to keep you guessing and at the same time wondering do ghosts really exist, can they affect our lives, how would they influence children and adults alike, not an easily granted skill that is to weave a story like this, this is excellent work, rarely you find such works on the shelves, surely it does.
Great read, well-earned 5 stars
Rating: really liked it
A sweet story of kids having fun in the summer and maybe discovering a ghost. Nothing threatening though. My older daughter enjoyed it, especially the suspenseful chapter endings! The little one found them a little too intense, but also wouldn’t miss hearing the chapters. Over all a very cute book that reminded me of summers when I was a kid and we’d just kind of do whatever!
Rating: really liked it
This is a book I found at a Yardsale for 25 cents, which I am glad that is all I spent on this book given the problems that threw me off which I will list below.
CONS:
I Hate Smart Kids - No really, the protagonists are two kids in their early teens and do some Sherlock Holmes level of analysis when they are trying to track down clues to whether or not there is some paranormal involvement happening in the house next door. In some cases they immediately jump to the correct conclusion with no missteps or any real investigation. I am not saying its impossible that young teens can be quite smart. I am saying that in this old style southern setting, with simple people in a simple town, with girls that age... their level of analysis is completely unbelievable. They are smarter than the ADULTS in this story at times...
SPOILER ALERT!
Ghosts Don't Exist - Well at least not in this story anyway. This is where the Spoiler alert comes in. YOU DON'T SEE THE GHOST EVER, AT ALL. It never makes an appearance... it is simply heavily implied that it is around. Which is frustrating. The cover of this book shows a young ethereal ghostly girl cradling the ever important cement-owl in her hands... which makes a reader think we'd see the ghost. No... no we do not.
Shut Up Already - Dear god this is one of those books where 97% of it is Dialogue between characters. I wanted to see some hauntings, I wanted to see people freaking out and fleeing down the street in their nightwear having been jostled awake by an apparition. Instead we have hundreds of pages of "Hey, you, is there a ghost?" I don't mind dialogue, it's necessary to a story, but when that's all you have to bring to the table as an author, its time to set down your pen and go apply at the local Gas Station.
PROS:
Subliminal Sub-plot - All I really liked about this Story is that there was an undertone talking about how Sherry, the unknowing Half-Sister of Miranda (the apparent ghost), feels like her aunt and father loved Miranda more than she did and she begins to act out and make up stories for attention. Making the reader sad that they allowed the loss of Miranda to affect the amount of attention they give to Sherry, and alternatively that Miranda might be haunting them because they have hidden the very fact that she even existed from the new family.
All in all this book mostly just wasn't for me. If you want a family friendly story with very little action and lots of dialogue, have at it!
