4. Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story - Mary Downing Hahn
A dysfunctional step family move into a remote house, which used to be a church and comes replete with a graveyard, in the country. The step siblings fight amongst themselves which puts stress on the parents. One of the children - Heather - makes outlandish lies up about her step siblings Molly and Michael. She threatens them with Helen, a ghost she met in the graveyard who is her soulmate. Molly and Michael are threatened by Heather using Helen as a figure of retribution. She tells them that Helen will come after them and their mother. This comes true when Helen invades the house and destroys all of Heather's step family's stuff. Michael and Molly argue over Helen's existence. They see Heather going out to the graveyard and when they confront her about this, she gets them into more trouble by telling her dad they are spying on her. Michael goes to a library and finds out There was a Helen 100 years ago who fell in a pond and drowned. Several kids have since drowned in the very same pond. It dawns on Molly that Helen wants to kill Heather so she can keep her with her forever. She follows Heather to Helen's old house and there indeed is Helen trying to get Heather to drown herself. Molly saves her from this fate and they run into the house. The floor falls in and they come across two skeletons - Helen's parents who died in a house fire. Helen eventually comes into the basement and sees her parents' bodies that she has never seen before. She is able to rest in peace now that she has closure. But what will become of the family that is riven by arguments? And how will they react to a confession from Heather concerning the death of her own mother? A book that both children and adults can enjoy, Wait Till Helen Comes is an effectively creepy little ghost story which has received considerable acclaim and which also has a cult following. All of the scary motifs are there - spooky children, a dark murky pond, a haunted house and a nefarious graveyard. The story is very well told and sustains considerable tension and suspense. At first, Heather is a whiny, spiteful child - but there are reasons for this as we find out at the end. Then she gets freaky and creepy when she befriends Helen. Ghost children are always scary no matter what age you are. And ghost children trying to get real kids to drown themselves is even eerier. Many adults have enjoyed this book alongside many children and they have found it to be a major spine tingler.