The Haunted Library 1 – The Haunted Library

Dori Hillestad Butler's The Haunted Library is a funny, gentle ghost mystery for 5 year olds about a little ghost who's scared of walls.

What happens

Kaz is a ghost, but not a very good one. He can't glow. He can't wail. And he really, REALLY doesn't want to pass through walls (it makes him feel skizzy, which is ghost for queasy). His little brother can do cartwheels through them!

Then a wrecking ball smashes into the old schoolhouse where his family haunts. The wind carries them all off in different directions, and Kaz lands, alone, in a library.

There he meets Claire. She lives upstairs with her grandma, and she's a solid (that's a person, to a ghost) who can see and hear ghosts when nobody else can. She wants to be a detective like her parents. Kaz just wants to find his family.

Together they take on the mystery everyone in the library is whispering about. The lights keep going out. Children keep seeing a ghost floating by the big plant. And if it doesn't stop, the library might have to close!

It's such fun because you see our world through Kaz's eyes. He's never watched people walk on floors before. He doesn't know what sleeping is. When he spins round too fast under a ceiling fan he throws up (all over Claire!). Little ones will love knowing things a ghost doesn't!

There's a grumpy ghost called Beckett in a top hat who lives behind a bookcase, and a cat who can definitely see Kaz, whatever anyone says.

The sad part is Kaz losing his family, right at the start. It's handled softly and the story is full of hope that he'll find them. Still, a child who worries about getting lost might want a cuddle at that bit.

What to read next

This is the first Haunted Library book, and it's a lovely one to share at bedtime. If Kaz and Claire win them over, the pair set up as ghost detectives in The Ghost in the Attic, and Kaz has to ride inside Claire's water bottle so the wind can't blow him away.