The Haunted Library 3 – The Ghost Backstage

Dori Hillestad Butler's The Ghost Backstage is a gentle ghost mystery for 5 year olds about a young ghost who goes to school for the day.

What happens

Kaz is a ghost boy who lives in a library. A grumpy old ghost called Beckett is trying (very impatiently) to teach him ghost skills. Kaz can't glow, can't wail and really doesn't like passing through walls.

His best friend is Claire, who lives above the library and is the only person who can see and hear him. Together they run a detective agency. Claire wants to solve mysteries. Kaz wants to find his family, who were blown in different directions when their old schoolhouse haunt was knocked down.

This time a boy called Jonathan swears a ghost floated through the stage curtain at Claire's school. Could it be someone from Kaz's family? So Kaz shrinks himself down, climbs into Claire's water bottle and goes to school.

School turns out to be very LOUD. All those feet! Kaz spends the first part hiding at the bottom of the bottle. (Honestly, who could blame him?) Then Jonathan describes the ghost, and she sounds an awful lot like Kaz's mum.

It's a proper little whodunnit too. The school is putting on Jack and the Beanstalk, strange things keep happening backstage and there's a secret trapdoor in the stage that most of the children don't know about.

There's a sweet thread about Jonathan as well. Other kids call him "Ghost Boy" because nobody believed him. Claire does.

It's spooky rather than scary. The ghosts are friendly, Kaz's biggest worry is feeling "skizzy", and there's a little glossary of ghost words at the front so your reader can learn what that means. It's a lovely step up for a child who's ready for chapters and likes a mystery with a bit of heart.

What to read next

This is the third Haunted Library book, and it gives you what you need as you go. Kaz's story starts in the first Haunted Library book, where the wind carries him away from his old haunt and in through a window into a room full of books.