Ghost Girl: A Blue Ridge Mountain Story (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
gr 5-8 213 pgs1929-1932 Blue Ridge Mountains Virginia. 11 year old April Sloane has never been to school. When President Hoover opens the President's Mountain School, for children living on the mountain, April wants to go too. With the help of Aunt Birdie, April is able to convince her mother to let her attend. More than anything April wants to learn to read. With the help of Miss Vest, April hopes that her wish might finally come true.Although based on the true experiences of Miss Vest, the main characters are fictional. The story is not just a story about learning to read, but also a story about healing as April deals with her grief over her younger brother's death the previous year. The story included a lot of information about daily life for April and her classmates as well as information about life in the 1930s in general(Hoovervilles, Sears catalogue, etc). Great story
Quite depressing, but probably realistic story about the rural mountains of Virginia during the Depression era. President Hoover has a summer home "Rapidan" and orders that a school be built in the area. Tow-headed, pale April wants very badly to attend the new school, with the new, fancy-dressed, kind teacher (Miss Vest), but her mother is set against it. She needs more help than ever around the house, with her husband traveling to get work, and her young son having died in an accident.The book is about April's struggle to learn to read (without the opportunity of going to school), and her stuggle with the secret she holds about her brother's accident.The best developed character to me is Aunt Birdy, who is really April's grandmother. She is very colorful and wise, and adds an underlying current of light to this dark story.
What do You think about Ghost Girl: A Blue Ridge Mountain Story (2003)?
A wonderful book of history. I live where this book takes place Madison County VA and thought the book went a long with many historic events. My grand mothers older sisters and brothers were born at Dark Hallow a place mention in the book and my family was kicked off the mountain and was not given any compensation. I can go up into the park and get a key from a park ranger and visit a family cemetery anytime I please. so for me this book hits right at home. I have even been in the school house that has been moved and converted to a ranger station. I would highly recommend reading this book and learn some history
—Darren Gray
I picked up this book on a whim from the library in the young adult fiction section. It was a quick read, with characters based on real people who did in fact live and make this school in West Virginia. The author did a good job in describing the life of poverty and ignorance that is most of these families' fate, including what happens to one family when they are not able handle their grief after losing a child. The mother of the main character, April, is incredibly unlikeable and frustrating, but the author stays true to that characterization throughout the book, as well as characterizations of the others in the story.
—Kristine
