Haunts for Halloween

Author WILLIAM ALEXANDER loves reading ghost stories. He won the National Book Award for his first novel, Goblin Secrets. His new one, A Properly Unhaunted Place, tells another spooky tale. But it’s also about friendship, courage, and history. In the story, Rosa can’t understand why her mother, a librarian who specializes in appeasing ghosts, moves to Ingot. It’s the only town in the world without ghosts. But then Ingot’s biggest attraction, the Renaissance Festival, is unexpectedly haunted. Rosa and a boy named Jasper must stop the angry ghosts. Though it’s a ghost story, the characters are the main focus. “Jasper is a great [contrast] to Rosa,” Alexander told TFK Kid Reporter Marley Alburez. “I really like how different the two of them are.”