The Haunted Library 5 – The Secret Room

Dori Hillestad Butler's The Secret Room is a gentle ghost mystery for 5 year olds about a ghost boy who finally dares to swim through a wall.

What happens

Kaz is a ghost. He lives in a library with his little brother Little John, their ghost dog Cosmo and a grumpy older ghost called Beckett. There's also Claire, a girl who lives there with her family and is the only person who can see them.

Kaz has always hated passing through walls (it makes him feel skizzy). But behind the bookshelf in the craft room is a hidden room, and today he makes it all the way in.

It's full of floating ghostly things. A rag doll with red yarn hair, keys, socks, a jack-in-the-box. And one solid envelope marked TOP SECRET that none of the ghosts can open.

Claire can't get in at all, because there's no door. So how did anything solid end up in there?

Then a class trip to the town museum turns up a clue. The library was once a grand house, built by a man who made his fortune from a soda pop with a secret recipe. Nobody has ever found it. Could it be in that envelope?

This is the fifth Haunted Library book, so Kaz and Claire have solved a few cases already. You pick up the ghost rules quickly, though. Ghosts can shrink, glow and swim through the air, and solids are what they call people.

Kaz is a worrier, and he's lovely company. Little John is the total opposite, bold and bouncy and always asking why not now. Their squabbling feels just like real brothers.

It's a proper little mystery too. Claire keeps a detective notebook, the clues build nicely, and her mum starts acting very oddly whenever the hidden room comes up.

If you've got a young reader who likes a ghost story that isn't actually scary, this is ideal.

What to read next

Kaz and Claire's story starts in the first Haunted Library book. That's where Kaz gets blown out of his old haunt, lands in the library and first teams up with Claire.