Sweet Miss Honeywell's Revenge: A Ghost Story
Grade 5-8–After Zibby is mysteriously compelled to spend all of the money that she had been saving for inline skates on an old dollhouse, she discovers that it is inhabited by a malicious doll that seems bent on causing harm to the 12-year-old, her family, and her friends. This doll is the ghost of Miss Honeywell, a cruel and bitter woman who was once the governess of young Primrose, the original owner of the dollhouse in 1919. As the entity becomes more powerful, Zibby and her friends try to solve the mystery of the dollhouse before her family is destroyed. This theme has been explored in many books, including Betty Ren Wright's shorter but more chillingThe Dollhouse Murders(Holiday, 1983). The story begins strongly with an air of menace, but the suspense isn't maintained throughout the rather long narrative. Readers will probably stick with it, though, due to the easy flow of the writing and the likable characters; this is not just a ghost story but a tale of kids trying to adjust to new stepparents and stepsiblings. The plot gets cluttered as more ghosts pop out of the woodwork, but the stray ends are all tied together at the dramatic but contrived climax. A good choice for libraries with a high demand for thrillers.–Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public LibraryCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.