Wait Till Helen Comes, by Mary Downing Hahn
From the flap:
"Beware of Helen...
"Heather is such a whiny little brat. Always getting Michael and me into trouble. But since our mother married her father, we're stuck with her...our "poor stepsister" who lost her real mother in a mysterious fire.
But now something terrible has happened. Heather has found a new friend, out in the graveyard behind our home -- a girl named Helen who died with her family in a mysterious fire over a hundred years ago. Now her ghost returns to lure children into the pond...to drown! I don't want to believe in ghosts, but I've followed Heather into the graveyard and watch her talk to Helen. And I'm terrified. Not for myself, but for Heather..."
The best ghost story. Ever. I loved that the ghost was real -- no "oh it was just the wind" or Scooby Doo style unmasking at the end of this tale. I loved that the ghost was angry and fickle, and that she could actually make things happen. I loved that it was downright scary, but not so scary that it made me wake up screaming, and I was quite the little sissy. There's just the right amount of tension and mystery, and everything gets tied up just right in the end.
Any time I picked this book up, I was compelled to finish it. (Which explains why I'm doing this all from memory -- I don't have time to reread it today, so I don't dare touch the thing.) Even the setting for Wait Till Helen Comes still lives in its entirety in my head, from the church and the graveyard to Harper House itself. It's safe to say the story made an impression.
A few years ago, Mary Downing Hahn spoke at children's lit class at my university, and I got to see her. I also got to drive her to lunch, and I told her precisely how surreal that was. You really don't imagine as a fifth-grader that you'll one day be chauffering the author of one of your favorite books for an afternoon. I think we both got quite a kick out of that.
A strange thing: as much as I loved Wait Till Helen Comes, I've never read any other of Mary Downing Hahn's books. Not a one. I guess I was afraid they wouldn't be as good, which is silly -- it's not like that would make me like Helen any less.
7 comments:
Try The Wind Blows Backward. Not a ghost story, a love story -- wonderful!
Because when I see you mention a Helen, I automatically assume you're talking about the Keller kind of Helen, so for a split second, I thought this was a horror story about Helen Keller. . .
. . .Which would be the pinnacle of AWESOME.
AHHH!! I loved this when I was a kid too! What is it with our need to scare the crap out of ourselves? I don't do that anymore, but wow did I love the Mary Downing Hahn & Betty Ren Wright and such.
While I loved WTHC, the one I read and re-read was Stepping on Cracks. That was set during WWII and I think there was a war deserter.
And then there was Dead Man in Indian Creek. Liked that one too, but I don't remember any others...
Yeah, Betty Ren Wright! I was a fan of The Dollhouse Murders, too.
Mary Downing Hahn talked a little bit about winning the Scott O'Dell award for Stepping on the Cracks. She was rather taken aback because she wasn't accustomed to thinking of her own life as historical!
*****
Oh Casey, you sick little ticket, you. That's why I love you.
My big shock? Finding that Hahn was alive, well, and still writing this stuff. Her most recent book (Dark and Dangerous, was it?) is basically Helen redux but still worth a read.
And yes, I read Ms. Wright's works all thanks to the Scholastic Book Fair handouts they gave in school. Damn smart marketing, that.
I love Mary Downing Hahn's books! Wait Til Helen Comes is good, but my absolute favorite Hahn story is The Doll in the Garden.
Oh my gosh - It's on GOOGLE BOOKS!
< here >
The Doll in the Garden taught me about consumption.
Thanks for posting this Sarah.
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