The Ghost at Dawn’s House

Ann M. Martin's The Ghost at Dawn's House is a spooky friendship story for 9 year olds about a girl who's SURE her very old house is hiding a secret passage.

What happens

Dawn's just back from two weeks with her dad in California. Her house in Stoneybrook was built in 1795, with low doorways, uneven stairs and a barn out the back. Some days it gives her the creeps.

Then a huge storm rolls in. Dawn's reading a library book of ghost stories in bed (with every light in the room switched on). The lights flicker, the window rattles and something taps on the wall. Mum says old houses make noises. Dawn's not convinced.

So she rounds up the rest of the Baby-sitters Club (this is their ninth book) to search the house. They tap the walls, feel along the moulding for hidden catches and shine a torch about, just like Nancy Drew. This is the bit that feels most like hanging out with the girls. Who hasn't spooked themselves silly with friends on a stormy afternoon?

It turns into a fabulous prank war. Two of them hide behind the attic door and growl. The others moan down a heating vent. Then Dawn's little brother Jeff turns up in a one-eyed monster mask and EVERYONE screams.

There's ordinary club life too. Little Gabbie, in Kristy's old house, calls everyone by their full name. Nicky Pike vanishes for a while after his brothers leave him out, then comes back looking very pleased with himself.

And then Dawn has a very big surprise in the barn. Is the house haunted after all? She's quite certain it is.

It's a little spooky in places, which is worth knowing. Dawn's head is full of creepy stories from her book, including a hitchhiker who turns out to have died years before. She also worries out loud about children going missing. It's all quite gentle, but a very jumpy reader might want to know. It's dated in places too. Claudia is described as "Japanese and exotic-looking", which is worth a quick chat.

The girls are thirteen, but it reads easily for younger children. A newcomer won't feel lost, though the club's story starts back in Kristy's Great Idea.

What to read next

If your reader loves a shiver in an old house, try The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street. Tessa has moved from sunny Florida into a creaky house in Chicago with her little brother, and a mark she never drew turns up in her sketchpad.