Book Review: Ghostville Elementary #1

Ghost Class

by Marcia Thornton Jones and Debbie Dadey

Hi! I'm your host for book talk today. I'll be sharing about the first installment from the Ghostville Elementary series Ghost Class.

Ahem, Tris, you need to get down.

(woof)
Thank you. (gets seated) So the cover shows us what looks to be a mixed classroom photo. We've always loved ghost stories and stories with ghosts as characters. No the scary ones though. 

Here is a better look. This one caught our eye. It was sent to us by a friend who was thinning their family library. The book is in excellent condition!

Pencil sketch style illustrations are dotted throughout the story helping readers focus their mental pictures of the characters and activities. There aren't that many; just enough.

The back repeats the class picture and provides a nice blurb.

"And you thought your class was spooky! The basement of Sleepy Hollow's elementary school is haunted. At least that's what everyone says. But no one has ever gone downstairs to prove it. Until now... this year, Cassidy and Jeff's classroom is in the basement. But the kids aren't scared. there's no such thing as ghosts, right? Tell that to the ghosts. the basement belongs to another class⏤a ghost class. they don't want to share. And they will haunt Cassidy and her friends until they get their room back."

The blurb is pretty good at giving hints to what will be happening, but also has a few inaccuracies about what actually happens. The deception is not cool.

Overall, we all enjoyed reading this book. It was a fun read. Nice style. The characters were kind of flat; especially those other than Cassidy, Nina, Jeff, Ozzy, and Olivia. The main character, Cassidy, has some good and bad points. So does her nemesis, Ozzy. Ozzy and his classmates are trying to get Cassidy and her classmates out of their room, but their efforts are lost on most of the class and lead only to get Cassidy in trouble. Of course, that only makes Cassidy mad. Olivia knows what is going on and hints at solutions. I know Kaya started to get annoyed with Cassidy. Melody thought it wrapped up too quickly. Lanie wanted to know more about "the incident." Lea wanted Olivia to be more helpful. Grace loved Nina more than Cassidy. And Kirsten came up with a plan similar to the wrap up in the book a couple chapters before the author presented it.

As I said, we enjoyed the book. Not sure we will search out others in the series and we plan to share this through the Little Free Library at ArtFusion 19464. Now I'm wondering...how would you feel if your classroom was moved to the basement and it was haunted? Thank you for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed our book talk.

Xyra's Review

Ghost Class by Marcia Thornton Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A very quick read for an adult reader. A nice chapter book for younger readers. The illustrations are nice.

The small school is overcrowded and the third grade class needs to move to a new classroom in the basement. It's spooky and gets spookier. Kind of.

My favorite character is Nina. She grasped Olivia's meaning and tried hard to get Cassidy to understand too. Cassidy is a bit hardheaded and I struggled with her character. Jeff was nice. Ozzy was interesting.

I liked the bright ending, but it wrapped up very quickly and left me with questions.

A good, quick read.

Have a great Thursday!