Dying to Meet You: 43 Old Cemetery Road

Ignatious B. Grumply was once the beloved author of the Ghost Tamer series of books for children, but he now suffers from a terrible case of writer's block and hasn't been able to write anything for twenty years. Hoping that a change of scenery might do him good, he decides to rent an old Victorian home for the summer while he works on the highly-anticipated 13th book. Unfortunately, Ignatious finds more than he bargained for when he arrives and realizes that when he had his lawyer sign the contract to rent the home, he unwittingly agreed to care for a boy named Seymour who was left behind by his parents while they toured Europe to make a series of presentations about how there is no such thing as ghosts. It soon becomes clear that Seymour's parents had a reason for leaving him behind - he is clearly convinced that a ghost is living in his home. Ignatious isn't happy to be sharing his abode with this child and is even more unhappy that Seymour keeps blaming all of the noise in the house on a ghost. What will it take to whip Seymour into shape? Or, more importantly, what will it take for Seymour and the ghost of Olive get Ignatius to pull it together?

This book, written and illustrated by the team of Kate and M. Sarah Klise, is a real winner. Told in a series of letters, drawings, and newspaper articles, the book's format is easily accessible, highly entertaining, and brilliantly executed. I enjoyed the book's humor, filled with snide jabs and delightfully punny names like Anita Sale (a realtor), Paige Turner (Ignatious' agent) and E. Gadds (Ignatious' lawyer). There's even a great sort of lesson thrown in at the end of the book about how everyone's life is a story that's sometimes better than fiction in a non-didactic manner. This moral is even more clever when you consider the book's narrative format - using written documents from real life to tell the story. How cool is that? Definitely a fun read for kids who like not-scary ghost stories, humor, and other books with interesting formats such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Also check out the sequel, Over My Dead Body: 43 Old Cemetery Road.

Overall Grade: A