One For Sorrow

One For Sorrow: A Ghost Story takes place in 1917 and 1918 just as the influenza epidemic became
rampant across the USA. It is a children's story focusing around a new girl, Annie, who just moved into a new house and started at a new school. Nervous about making friends and slightly standoffish at the beginning, Annie gets picked up by the strange girl in the class. Elsie is weird. Larger than most girls in class, with an odd family, sweaty hands, and a knack for tattling on the other girls, Elsie is not hated by most of the class. Annie soon realizes why most of the other girls don't like Elsie, and she agrees with them. After inviting herself into Annie's house, she breaks her toys, calls herself Annie's best friend, and intrudes on everything Annie holds precious.

After a week or so of torture forcefully being Elsie's friend, Elsie is gone from school for a week and Annie is given the chance to show the girls that she is normal and doesn't like being "friends" with Elsie at all. Elsie comes back and feels betrayed that her only friend has sided with her enemies.

Influenza travels across the sea and starts killing people by the hundreds. Annie's new town is no acception. The girls see this as an opportunity though. The many funerals have refreshments and candies that just can't be ignored. So they sneak in, pretending to know the deceased and partake of the tasty treats. Over and over they do this until, after a particular night teasing Elsie, they find that Elsie herself has died of the Flu. Then after a sledding accident and bumping into Elsie's grave, Annie starts seeing Elsie everywhere. Elsie forces her to do nasty things. When will this stop?

I needed to step away from fantasy for a moment and I found 1918 and ghosts. It was an okay diversion. Not the best but for a children's book it was alright. The story toward the beginning gave me chills which was cool and I wanted to see how Annie would get rid of the ghost so I read it all. The setting and scenery was lacking for most of it, the reasoning as to why Elsie was fading was unclear, her meeting and being friends with someone who actually knew what to do seemed like a "because: plot" reason.

I do believe that the characters, though, were true to real people. I know just how terrible girls can be when you are different. I know how getting picked on can feel. It had a good moral to the story of "be nice to those around you otherwise it can come back to haunt you" as well as try to be understanding to those around you, we are all going through something.

This would be a book that I'd give a 5th or 6th grade girl. Good book for the appropriate audience.