Scritch Scratch by Lindsay Currie (review)

Straitlaced Claire is strictly interested in the facts, not the ghost stories that her father shares on his ghost tour bus, and she's lived her whole life in Chicago without knowing about its spooky history, whether it be the Alley of Death that held 600 bodies after the Iroquois Theatre fire or the tragic sinking of the SS Eastland. Then Claire sees a little boy, invisible to everyone else, staring directly at her. This little boy haunts her, leaving clues regarding his identity and his demands, but as she tries to figure it out the hauntings become more intense. Add trouble with her best friend and a new girl's invading their friendship into the mix and we have a preteen scream of a novel. The ghostly plot is a scary tale that lives up to the reputation of haunted Chicago, and readers with a curiosity about disasters will be intrigued by the identity of the boy, based on a real-life victim of the Eastland tragedy, and the surrounding issues. This offers a ghost-hunterly blend of reality and chills that should appeal to many readers with creepy interests, and this dive into spooky Chicago history will keep them scarily happy until they're ready for Selzer's Just Kill Me (BCCB 4/16).