This was a book my doctor had in his office when I was a kid in the 70s. It was a small paperback about a house that was haunted by children who used to live there–I think there may have been a murder committed that started the haunting, and a little girl who was either living in the house or had visited it who was experiencing the ghostly phenomenon.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
[Posting for community member, Ruth]
Perhaps it’s the 152 page, 1972 paperback “The Ghost Next Door” by Wylly Folk St. John, with mood evoking illustrations by the phenomenal Trina Schart Hyman.
( An unforgettable classic and wonderfully spooky story of suspense that never should have gone out of print! Bring it back into print!!)
Young Sherry visits her Aunt Judith’s house, with a creepy pond in the large back yard where Sherry’s half-sister, Miranda, drowned many years earlier.
Neighbors Lindsay and Tammy try to solve the mystery of Sherry’s elusive new friend and her ability to locate a strange, ceramic owl hidden in a bizarre location.
It could be The Children of Green Knowe, by LM Boston. That one has multiple children from the past, but it’s a boy living in the house in the current time.
(I love The Ghost Next Door too though.)
Maybe The Ghosts by Antonia Barber?
I think it sounds like Moondial by Helen Cresswell. The modern-day character is Minty, who is staying with an old friend of her mother’s over the summer while her mother does nursing training. The ghosts she meets are Tom, a young servant from the 19th century, and Sarah, the unhappy daughter of the house in the 18th century. Things intensify when Minty’s mother has an accident that leaves her in a coma, and a scary ghost hunter comes to stay with her host.
I remember it as an exciting adventure when I read it as a child, but revisiting it as an adult I find it achingly sad, especially Tom’s story. It’s very atmospherically written.