A Festival of Ghosts creeps throughout for kids with spooks, without gore

Ghosts are real, accept that now. There are also people who have the skills to communicate with them. These people help them deal with their questions, unresolved issues or the occasional ill-tempered or misinformed poltergeist. A Festival of Ghosts is the second story to feature Rosa Diaz and the town of Ingot that has dozens upon dozens of spectral happenings, plus a pair of middle schoolers who are up to the challenge.

We didn’t read the first book in the series, A Properly Unhaunted Place, nor is it entirely necessary for you to read it to fully enjoy A Festival of Ghosts. From the first page we meet Rosa, who has the ability to appease ghosts, and her friend Jasper. Jasper is the son of the family that used to run the town’s Renaissance festival. Jasper is hip to magic now also as it’s quickly demonstrated as the two kids are playing and trots off into the forest on a horse made of stone.

A Festival of Ghosts is a soft, ghost tale that ages 9 and up will enjoy. The chapters are around 13 pages long and have text that grades four and up will be able to read fluently. Our third grader can read most of the book, but not quite fluent enough to enjoy it. Middle school kids who like steady, spooky tales that don’t have any gore will like this.

Rosa quickly realizes that everything is not OK. Large bumps are appearing on school grounds, she’s not getting clear answers from her mom (who has master ghost appeasement skills) and there’s just something off about some of the kids in school. And then comes the day when several of the kids suddenly lose their voices. Sensing that a malevolent spirit is on the verge of doing some large scale evil she ups her game and tries to figure out exactly what’s going on.

Fans of the first book will like the fact that Jasper has a larger presence in this book. Even though I didn’t read the first book, it’s apparent that Williams wanted to flush out some of Rosa’s friend’s back story and he adds a nice dimension to its narrative.

A Festival of Ghosts isn’t scary; rather it’s a slow build that explores the human side of friendships, with a side dose of paranormal exercising. It’s creeps more than it outright scares with some really nice creative elements like the stone horse and the real turtle.