Deep and Dark and Dangerous: A Ghost Story

Gr 4-7Thirteen-year-old Ali is excited to be spending the summer with her Aunt Dulcie, an artist, and her four-year-old cousin, Emma, in the Maine lakeside cottage where her aunt and mother spent their childhood summers. But why is Alis mother so terrified to let her go? Why did the sisters annual sojourns there stop so abruptly 30 years earlier? And what is the meaning of Alis recurring dream in which, while walking along the shore of Sycamore Lake, she meets a young girl who points to three girls in a canoe and admonishes, you must do something about this? Ali soon discovers that Teresa, her mothers and aunts playmate, had disappeared and was presumed drowned when their grandfathers empty canoe washed up on shore. When a strange girl calling herself Sissy shows up at the cottage and lures Emma into defiant and dangerous behavior, Ali finally realizes who she is. Hahn weaves into the story some classic mystery elements such as a torn photograph, a waterlogged doll, dense fog, and an empty grave, all of which add to the suspense and keep the well-plotted story moving along to a satisfying conclusion."Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY" Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

"Signature spooky Hahn sends appropriate shivers up the reader's spine ... satisfyingly chilly." —Kirkus Reviews

"Hahn offers another eerie, suspenseful ghost story filled with family secrets." —Booklist, ALA

"Classic mystery elements ... add to the suspense and keep the well-plotted story moving along to a satisfying conclusion." —School Library Journal

"A compact and approachable shiveriness ... an easygoing vacation read." —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books