A to Z Mysteries – The Haunted Hotel

Ron Roy's The Haunted Hotel is a ghost-hunting mystery for 5 year olds that's more giggles than goosebumps.

What happens

It's two weeks before Halloween, and the Sunday paper says there's a ghost at the Shangri-la. Guests are streaming out with their suitcases (one woman is still in her bunny slippers). Josh doesn't believe in ghosts. Not until he sees one with his own eyes, anyway.

Guess what happens next?

Mr Linkletter, who runs the hotel's front desk, is in a terrible state. The elderly couple who own the place are so upset that they're about to sell it to three pushy businessmen who want to knock it down. So the three friends take the job. Get rid of the ghost by lunchtime tomorrow, or the hotel's gone.

The best bit is a sleepover. All three families stay the night at the hotel. At midnight the kids sneak out and squash into a smelly cleaning cupboard to watch the corridor. Then something white and glowing comes floating along, moaning each of their names outside their bedroom doors!

That's a genuinely creepy moment. But clues start piling up straight away, with a stray white hair on a door frame and a smell Josh can't quite place. Who's really behind it? Your reader will have fun working that out.

If your reader is a bit nervous about ghosts, that's actually what makes this one good. The spooky thing gets explained, and the ending is a proper laugh (Josh has to wear something he'd REALLY rather not be photographed in).

There's lovely detail about the town too. Mr Linkletter offers mints from a paper bag. Josh tries to teach Dink's guinea pig to add up with raisins. And the businessmen's names turn out to be a very good joke.

What to read next

Fancy a mystery out in the summer sunshine next? In The Invisible Island the three friends find a hundred-dollar bill buried in the sand during a picnic on a little river island.