The Doll in the Garden: A Ghost Story Paperback – June 18, 2007

This audible book kept me attached to my computer. Great story, not just for young people but also for adults like me who love ghost stories. And this one was a freebie, too! It's also short, just over 2 hours.

My 10 year old daughter has recently gotten into “creepy” mystery books and we randomly picked this one out together. We have read it together (I always read with her to make sure certain stories aren’t too scary to prevent nightmares) we really loved this book. It has a good plot, a little bit of drama as well and some situations that kids can relate to. The short version is, a little girl is moving with her mom to a new home due to her dad sadly passing away. The mom can’t afford much and they end up renting a room from a very mean old lady who turned her house into an apartment. The little girl makes a friend who is convinced the garden is haunted. Weird unexplainable things keep happening and the little girl finds a doll buried in the garden that actually ends up being the old woman’s best friend from her childhood that also passed away. She uncovers why the old woman is so mean and why she had the doll and who it belonged to. Good story to read with your child if they like mysteries.

Got it because of childhood nostalgia and it was worth it. Now I own one of my fav books from elementary

Loved this book as a kid and am so excited to read it as an adult!! I ordered the “used books” and got a hardback covered one for the price of the softback ones!! Pretty sweet, the only thing I’d say was wrong with it was it has the school name that it was gotten from written all over it, besides that pretty perfect condition.

My cousin loves spooky stuff and this was on her list

This book must have been for one of my kids book reports. Grade 4-7-- A young girl helps her cantankerous elderly landlord to resolve a childhood act that caused the woman lifelong guilt. Ashley follows a white cat back in time and meets Louisa, a girl who is dying and who longs for her beloved doll--a doll that Ashley and her friend Kristi have found buried in Miss Cooper's garden. In the end Ashley, Kristi, and Miss Cooper visit Louisa; the woman is able to make am mends with her childhood friend, and Ashley begins to accept her father's death. Hahn's portrayal of crotchety Miss Cooper is expertly drawn, giving vivid insight into why she acts and lives as she does. Ashley, her widowed mother, and Kristi are also fully realized characters. When Hahn sticks to her story, it moves along at a steady, scary clip. However, when she lapses into lengthy descriptions of flowers, birds, and landscape, she slows the pace of the story rather than creates the intended atmosphere. Ashley's first-person narrative often gets bogged down in a flowery adult voice, particularly in the descriptions: "As still as the cherub behind me, I watched the leaves sway in the breeze. Sunlight and shadow mottled the ground, and the weeds whispered to themselves, lulling me like distant voices of children at play." Still, it's an imaginative ghost story, fairly predictable, but with a completely satisfying ending.

I love the good ending. The story was well written and has a good plot.

I bought this book for my granddaughter who loves spooky books. She loved it!