While on vacation, a kid copes with a Tsunami
on the west coast of the U.S.

Kyle Davidson was in sixth grade at Edison School in Kansas. The meanest kid in the school was Daren Hazelton. Kyle was barely five feet tall and skinny as a rail, while Daren was five feet seven and built like a brick wall. Ever since Kindergarten, Daren had bullied Kyle almost every day. When the semester ended and it was time for summer vacation, Kyle thought at least he wouldn't have to put up with Daren's punching him all the time.

Kyle was excited when his parents announced that they were going to a resort hotel in Fisher Beach, Oregon for an all expenses paid national sales conference. They were going by plane, and they were taking Kyle and his little sister, BeeBee, with them on the trip. Kyle had never been on a plane before. In fact, he had never been out of Kansas before.

Imagine Kyle's shock, when at the airport, he met Daren Hazelton. Daren was going with his parents to the same sales conference and would even be staying at the same hotel as Kyle and his family. Naturally, Daren didn't tell Kyle this until he had sneaked up and punched Kyle in the back when no grown-ups were watching. Wow, how to ruin a perfectly good vacation!

The parents found out that they were going out in the ocean on a cruise ship for a special business meeting. The kids weren't invited. Kyle was going to be responsible for taking care of BeeBee all by himself when they remained behind at the hotel. It was only after his parents were gone that Kyle found out that the area they were in on the Pacific coast sometimes was hit by giant waves called tsunamis. These killer waves were caused by earthquakes.

To add to Kyle's fears, as he walked around the hotel grounds, he heard that there had been an earthquake out at sea and they all were in danger from a tsunami coming ashore. Kyle knew he and BeeBee had to move inland to higher ground. Could they make it in time? He was startled when Daren Hazelton made fun of him and accused him of being a chicken for wanting to leave the hotel. Kyle knew he was doing the right thing. Was he also responsible for trying to help save Daren as well?

Readers will have a nail-biting experience as they read about Kyle's attempts to save himself and his little sister. And while he is trying to escape the giant wave, he has to worry about what is happening to his mom and dad since they are at sea in the path of the tsunami.

A young girl encounters a ghost
who seems to want to help with baby-sitting

Charlotte has just moved from an apartment on one side of town to a house on the other side of town. She is thrilled to be living in a house where she will have her own bedroom. It's the beginning of summer and she will have to baby-sit Brandon, her three-year-old half-brother, but she's looking forward to making new friends in the neighborhood. Imagine her surprise when she meets Shannon, a girl her age, and Shannon talks about the ghost of a girl that haunts the house Charlotte's family has just moved into. It seems little kids and animals can see the ghost, but older kids and grown-ups can't see her.

At first Charlotte is angry at Shannon for talking about ghosts. Charlotte knows there is no such thing as ghosts. But when strange things start to happen, Charlotte begins to wonder if Shannon may be right. Brandon begins to talk about a friend named Suzie who talks to him and plays with him. There is no Susie in the neighborhood. And then, there's their new cat, Patchy, who won't go into Brandon's room, but just arches her back, hisses, and runs away when she looks in the door.

When Shannon finds that Charlotte is beginning to believe there is a ghost in the house, she volunteers her services in trying to contact the ghost and try to find out why the ghost is hanging around. The rumor in the neighborhood is that the house has been haunted for forty years. About that time a young girl was thought to have been killed in an accident, but nobody knew for sure. Maybe if the girls could find out what the ghost wanted, they could convince her to leave.

One of the things about the book "The Ghost Sitter" is that in alternate chapters Susie, the ghost, is describing the events from her perspective. We come to feel sorry for her and we want to see the mystery behind her being a ghost solved just as much as Charlotte and Shannon want to solve it. But you need to read the book to find out just what causes poor Susie to hang around as a ghost instead of joining those in her family who also have died.

A girl comes to understand and support her best friend
in a time of grief

Edwina (Eddie) Beckey is eleven years old, and what stands out about her is that she likes to keep lists of all kinds - to-do lists, homework lists, books read, books to be read, best friends, favorite names, favorite foods, and on and on.

She has six rubber bands on her wrist, each one a different color. What's their purpose? She snaps each one to help remind her to either do something or stop doing something. For example, the red one is to remind her to stop storing food in her cheeks like a chipmunk when she eats. (Her father hates that.) The blue one is to remind her to call her the grandmother of her best fiend, Sally Hobart, "Willie" instead of Mrs. Hobart. (Mrs. Hobart insists.)The yellow one is to keep her from tipping back in chairs. (It's a very dangerous practice.)

The white rubber band is to remind her to stop covering her mouth when she laughs. (People find that an irritating habit.) The pink one was to help her stop whistling under her breath. (That's another irritating habit.) Finally, the purple one has more than one purpose, with one of them being to remember to wear her glasses. (People, especially her teachers, can't understand that seeing things fuzzy isn't all bad.)

Well, you get the idea - Eddie Beckey, thinks about things all the time and really works at trying to keep her life organized. Of course, she's not totally successful at it. Her friend, Sally, on the other hand was always organized. And she didn't even seem to be trying hard at it.

Eddie and Sally had been best friends all their lives. Sally lived in a small house with her grandmother. The two girls spent so much time together they were almost like sisters. When school was out they sometimes camped out in a small empty cabin that was not far from where they lived. Then Eddie started to notice that Sally wasn't acting like her old self. For one thing, Sally stopped eating her favorite chocolate-covered sprinkle doughnuts. She didn't want to camp at the cabin and make s' mores. She said, "They're too sweet." This clearly was not normal for Sally. What could be happening?

It turns out that Sally's grandmother had a blood disease. She could not eat sweet things anymore. Sally knew that her grandmother was about to die and that was causing Sally to stop wanting to do fun things and be a best friend any longer. Eddie, with her mother's help, began to understand what was happening. What could she do to make things better for Sally and continue to act normally around Willie. To face the fact that Willie was about to die was a hard thing for the two girls to accept.

You need to read the book to find out how it all turns out.