Misty Gordon and the Mystery of the Ghost Pirates

Gr 4—6—Kennedy creates a quirky seaside community that reeks with ghostly surprises and odd souls. Misty Gordon, 11, has seen enough junk from the dead to last several lifetimes. Her parents own the Dearly Departed Antiques store in New England, and Misty yearns to ditch their secondhand spoils for more stylish accoutrements. When she reads the diary of Ashcrumb's wealthiest citizen, mysterious events yank her further into the past. She learns that the town's founding families hid an ugly secret that threatens to resurface. Guided by a psychic ghost, Misty races to locate three golden Greek statues ahead of a group of malicious, deceased town scions who seek resurrection and world domination. A sequel seems probable. The action moves briskly, and readers will want to solve the clues along with Misty and her sidekick, Yoshi. However, the characters lack development, and Kennedy sometimes fails to make their motivations and backgrounds clear. There are also extraneous plot threads such as the escaped mayonnaise-craving mental patient that have a tenuous correlation to the main story. For children who like Greek mythology and ghost hunting in a contemporary setting, there's enough here, though, for an appealing adventure.—Caitlin Augusta, Stratford Library Association, CT