Ravencave

Jamie’s family don’t seem to speak to one another any more. here’s an odd tension all the time and Jamie feels himself drifting away from them.

He doesn’t understand what happened. They used to have a laugh but now Mum is a writer who can’t write, Dad has lost his job and Robbie ignores him most of the time. Which makes this holiday pretty miserable.

Out on a rainy walk, Jamie is exploring the ruins of an old farmhouse when the ghost of a little girl appears and invites him to follow her. Could she have some of the answers he needs – and does he have the courage to go with her?

This accessible ghost story is tense, poignant and unsettling rather than overtly scary and gives up its secrets very gradually.

Set in a formerly industrial landscape, it also exposes some harsh truths about social injustice, poverty, wealth and the oppression of working people, by looking into the background of one particular family and their relationship with the past.

The use of a dyslexia-friendly font and off-white paper makes this book particularly appealing to reluctant readers but all readers will find the story haunts them long after the book is finished.