Mostly Ghostly 02 – Have You Met My Ghoulfriend

R. L. Stine's Have You Met My Ghoulfriend, the second Mostly Ghostly book, is a spooky, silly story for 9 year olds about a boy with two ghosts in his bedroom and a wasp in his ear.

What happens

Max Doyle is eleven, and his teacher wants everyone to keep an honest journal. Problem! If Max writes down what's really going on, she'll think he's making it all up.

Here's the truth. Nicky and Tara, a brother and sister, are ghosts who used to live in his house. Only Max can see or hear them. They can't remember how they died or where their parents went, so they've made him a deal. He helps them search, and they help him get braver, so his dad stops threatening to send him to a horribly strict boarding school.

Then, on the way to school, a wasp crawls into Max's ear. Inside it is Phears, an evil ghost who gets about by hiding inside animals. He wants Max to hand Nicky and Tara over, and if Max won't, he'll bring along something called a Berserker Ghoul.

Max's ear swells up to the size of a softball. Which is not ideal on rope-climbing day in PE. (The ghosts carry him up so he looks amazing. Then they vanish and leave him stuck at the top.)

Who doesn't love a narrator having the worst week ever? Max is funny about all of it. His journal says 'Not much happened today' while the chapters in between are full of ghosts and ghouls. There's a cat crying somewhere in his bedroom that nobody can find, and a chapter from Nicky's side that turns up a clue about their parents.

His big brother Colin is a proper bully (an egg down the back, a head-butt in the stomach), and their dad thinks it's all hilarious. It's played for laughs, but a child who gets picked on at home might find Colin hard to enjoy.

The scares are quick and jokey. Short chapters, cliffhanger endings and plenty of gross moments keep things rattling along.

What to read next

As it's the second book, it's worth starting with Who Let the Ghosts Out, which opens with Nicky and Tara walking home one cold night, wondering why they can't remember anything.