Girls seem to be so much in the ascendant these days that books celebrating their achievements might appear redundant. Yet anyone with a daughter probably knows how vulnerable they still feel and how, just as in Angela Brazil’s day, they need fictional reassurance.
Fiona Dunbar’s Kitty Slade has the fashionable power of being able to see ghosts. When one appears in her school biology class, about to scalpel a white rat, she does what any normal person would do, and shrieks. As nobody else can see the man, Kitty is suspended for the term – but her troubles have only just begun, because this particular ghost haunts her school as a result of being murdered.
The charm of the story is that it combines a supernatural thriller with an irresistibly sassy, funny account of everyday life. The orphaned Kitty and her younger brother and sister live with their entertainingly eccentric Greek grandmother, Maro, in a flat over a shop in Portobello Road. Maro knows quite a bit about being able to see ghosts, because it’s an inherited trait on her husband’s side of the family. Poor Kitty is shocked to find that, living in London, she can see – and soon hear – all manner of horrid hauntings. Yet the Slades are less threatened by ghosts than by the seedy Mr Eaton, their landlord. He owns the antique shop below, and wants them out of his valuable property ASAP. Is greed his only crime, or there something more sinister?
There’s an old-fashioned streak about having children working together to solve a mystery which fans of the Famous Five stories will recognise. Kitty is a bold, engaging narrator and her attitude is convincing enough to be interesting but not aggravating; like Dunbar’s trilogy about the spirited Silk Sisters, and the CBBC televised Jinx, supernatural powers don’t make a girls’ life any easier. Great fun. -Amanda Craig, The Times, July 2011
Here’s a video made by my writer friends Inbali Iserles and Joe Craig:
Another great series about a girl who can see ghosts is Fiona Dunbar’s Kitty Slade. Fire and Roses is the second in the series; the third, Venus Rocks, has just been published. Kitty is now home schooled by her Greek grandmother (events in the first story means that she can’t stay at school!) In this story, Kitty and her family are visiting an old family friend. Strange Poltergeist activity at their house leads Kitty to discover that they are under a curse because of their ancestor Sir Ambrose Vyner. Another ghost, John Wilkes, a fellow member of the Hellfire Club (a drinking club that invoked Bacchus and Venus and engaged in various practices designed to shock society) appears to Kitty, and she must solve a mystery to break the curse and ensure her friends can stay in their home. Much of the action of the book takes place in and near the Hellfire Caves in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, South East England; a great feature of the book is that young readers will learn some of the history and geography of the area alongside enjoying the story.
This book is lighter in tone than [Cathy MacPhail's] Out of the Depths; Fiona Dunbar aims to write stories similar to the Famous Five; I felt it was more like Nancy Drew crossed with Scooby Doo. Very enjoyable. - Fantastic Reads