Junior High Series

#13 Who’s Haunting the Eighth Grade? by Kate Kenyon, 1988.

A group of eighth graders are going on a field trip to see a Shakespeare play in another town, but right from the start, everything seems to be going wrong. The teachers who are accompanying them on their trip are in a foul mood and spend a good part of the trip arguing with each other, which bothers the kids because they know that the teachers have recently become engaged to each other. Then, the bus breaks down in a small town before they can reach their destination.  The entire class is going to have to spend the night somewhere in the small town.

At first, things look like they’re going to improve when the group decides to spend the night at a local bed and breakfast in a big, beautiful, old house. However, their spirits are almost immediately dampened again when they are told that the house is haunted and that anyone who tries to stay there is scared away by the ghost. Still, they proceed with their plan to stay there in order to avoid staying at the dumpy local motel, the only other choice of accommodation.

Needless to say, before the night is over, the ghost puts in an appearance, and strange things start to happen.  By then, the students have come to feel sorry for the owner of the bed and breakfast, a nice older lady who grew up in the house but can’t really afford to keep it unless she can make her inn a success. Can the eighth graders catch the ghost, stop the hauntings, save the bed and breakfast from having to close, patch up the relationship between their feuding teachers, and still make it in time to see the play?

The book takes place in the 1980s, and the kids in the story are 14 years old. They mention the decade somewhere during the course of the story, and the descriptions of the clothes and some pop culture references make the time period fairly obvious. It also has some of the stock characters that books for pre-teens and early teens in the 80s have (ex. a boy-crazy space cadet, a level-headed health nut, a class clown, and a couple of young punks). Still, even though there are some things about the book that are a bit dated, it is still pretty enjoyable. The author has a sense of humor, and she plays with the characters’ stereotypes a bit. The class clown is secretly quite sensitive and even a bit perceptive. There are also a couple of fun scenes when the girl who is only interested in boys is shocked to discover that the boys are more interested in the mystery than in her.