The Ghost's Grave

What Josh thought would be the dullest summer of his life, spent with his eccentric great-aunt, turns chilling when he meets the ghost of a coal miner killed in a mine explosion. Willie has been waiting years for some kind soul to dig up his leg and rebury it with the rest of him—only then will he be at peace. Josh agrees to do the grisly deed, but when he digs in the old cemetery, he finds more than Willie’s leg bones! Who buried the box of cash in the grave, and why? How far will that person go to get the money back? The Ghost’s Grave is a deliciously spooky adventure from a master of suspense.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-7–Josh, 12, is furious at his mom and step-dad, who are spending their summer in India while he is trapped in Carbon City, WA. Aunt Ethel is very peculiar–she serves dinner for breakfast and thinks the peacock living on the porch is her dead sister. Josh's luck turns when he discovers a tree house and a stray cat with kittens nearby. He also meets a ghost named Willie, who shares the tragic story of his death and convinces Josh to dig up his leg bones and reunite them with the rest of his body. When Josh stumbles upon a metal box full of money buried with Willie's leg, he heads home with the cash, planning to tell Ethel and to call the police. But she breaks her ankle and is rushed to the hospital before he gets the chance. Later that night, the owner of the cash tracks down Josh and demands it back at gunpoint. Willie, the peacock, and a quick-thinking neighbor come to Josh's aid and foil the thief. This fast-paced and engaging book should be a hit with fans of ghost stories. Josh is a rich character to whom readers can relate and they will cheer him on as he searches for the truth.–Alison Grant, West Bloomfield Township Public Library, MI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 5-8. By turns comic and scary, Kehret's seventeenth novel is rooted in both the supernatural and the gritty reality of coal miners' lives in the first years of the last century. Hero-narrator Josh is sent to stay with a distant relative in Carbon City, Washington. From the moment he crosses the threshold of his aunt's old country house and witnesses her using a shotgun on a bat in the kitchen, he knows he has crossed into a life new and strange. With no TV, CDs, or DVDs, Josh occupies himself with a long bike ride into town, past a cemetery and a tree house said to be haunted. And haunted it is. Its ghost, the specter of an old coal miner who died in a disaster in 1903, has a mission for Josh; he wants the boy to dig up his leg, which was buried before the miner died, and reunite it with the rest of him. When Josh exhumes the limb, he discovers a buried box of cash. A bored kid in a dead-end town turns sleuth in this fun, fast-moving caper. Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Peg Kehret was born in Wisconsin, grew up in Minnesota, spent fourteen years in California, and now lives with her husband in Washington State. They have two grown children, four grandchildren, one dog, and one cat.Peg's novels for children are regularly recommended by the American Library Association, the International Reading Association, and the Children's Book Council. She has won many state "young reader" or "children's choice" awards. Peg's characters are ordinary kids who find themselves in exciting situations and who use their wits to solve their problems. There is usually humor as well as suspense in her books. A long-time volunteer at The Humane Society, she often uses animals in her stories.Before she began writing books for children, Peg published plays, short stories, articles, and two books for adults. She is a frequent speaker at conferences for librarians and teachers.At the age of twelve, Peg had polio and was paralyzed from the neck down. Because she can remember that experience and her year of recovery so vividly, she finds it easy to write in the viewpoint of a twelve or thirteen year old. Most of her main characters are that age. Her autobiography, Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, won the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, and the PEN Center USA West Award for Children's Literature.When she is not writing, Peg likes to watch baseball, bake cookies, and pump her old player piano.

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