The Doll in the Garden

By Mary Downing Hahn.


Ashley and her mom move into the upstairs of an old house midsummer. An old woman, Miss Cooper, lives in the bottom half of the house. In the evenings, a white cat always comes into the yard and meows at the house. Ashley's neighbor Kristi tells her that the cat is a ghost and only appears during the summer. Ashley notices that the cat doesn't have a shadow. One day Ashley and Kristi are messing around in the back garden when they unearth a treasure which starts the ball rolling in their ghostly adventures with the white cat.

This book is a quick-read. It doesn't waste time with inconsequential characters, and the plot moves forward fairly quickly. At the same time, the reader doesn't know how it will end. I read the whole book in less than an hour, and even though it was fast it was still enjoyable. I'd recommend it to girls in fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. Or adults like me that still get a kick out of children's lit. I think I'm going to go check out more books by this author, apparently she's got quite a few ghost stories published that are pretty good!