Review: On the Day I Died (Fleming)

Title: On the Day I Died: stories from the grave
Author: Fleming
Genre: Fiction, History, Ghost Stories, Death
Pages: 199
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I've never been a fan of ghost story collections, but they are wildly popular in all the schools and libraries that I've ever worked in. I am, however, a HUGE fan of Candace Fleming and her writing, so when I found out that she was going to write a ghost story collection for teens, I had to get my hands on it.

Late one dark night, teenager Mike Kowalski drives to a deserted cemetery to return a pair of old-fashioned saddle shoes to a grave (don’t ask). Once there, he is horrified to find himself surrounded by the ghosts of the many teenagers buried there, all of them "dying" to tell him their stories.

 

This collection of ten ghost stories is sure to send chills up the spines of teen readers. Set in White Cemetery, an actual graveyard outside Chicago, each story takes place during a different time period from the 1860's to the present. Some teens die heroically, others ironically, but all due to supernatural causes. Readers will meet walking corpses and witness demonic posession, all against the backdrop of Chicago's rich history: the Great Depression, the World's Fair, Al Capone and his fellow gangsters.

 

Good stuff...just in time for the "dark and scary night" season!