Mid Grade Review

Ghost in the Night Review

Book: Ghost in the Night
Author: Tiffany D. Jackson
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Year: 2026
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Harmony Roundtree is obsessed with ghosts. She’s not entirely sure they’re real, but she has her suspicions. When visiting Savannah, Georgia – known as the most haunted city in America – Harmony goes on a ghost tour…and she sees something that night, in the window of an abandoned house. Was it a ghost? Or a trick of the light? With two new friends, Harmony sets out to investigate…and stumbles upon shocking clues that lead to an unsolved murder.”

Review : This is my third middle grade ARC from Scholastic Press in the last two years and I’m beginning to notice a theme. The first two, books 1 and 2 in The Last Resort series, follow a young girl navigating the death of her grandfather while investigating a series of ghostly apparitions while she’s out of town. In Ghost in the Night, a completely different book unrelated to the aforementioned series, we find Harmony, a 12-year-old, navigating the death of her grandmother while investigating a ghostly apparition while she’s out of town. It’s a striking resemblance to the structure and framework of an entirely different book written by totally different people. I took issue with The Last Resort series when the kids were normalized meeting up with a stranger they’d been speaking to online and once again I find myself taking issue with Ghost in the Night for similar reasons. While Harmony and her friends do not actively speak to strangers online and then go out into the real world to meet those strangers (as we see happen in The Last Resort), Harmony and her 10-year-old companion Robby do indeed seek out an adult male online and find him in person. When it all goes down, Jackson even goes so far as to write in a little internal conversation that this is basically a walking advertisement for meeting strangers from the internet. I’m getting really tired of reading about little kids meeting strangers from the internet, particularly adult men. I think middle grade authors can do a hell of a lot better than that. Kids deserve better than that.

I think it’s a worthwhile device to navigate death and grief in a kid’s book by introducing ghosts, but it’s beginning to feel a bit done already, especially coming from the same publishing house less than a year apart from each other. I want Scholastic Press to do better, to push for different storylines, and to try a little harder. I think they did Jackson dirty by publishing this story right on top of another series that’s doing the exact same thing with the same time frame. It’s worth noting that while the structure of the story was the same, the contents were different, but not different enough that I wasn’t thinking back to the other series throughout.

Ghost in the Night was a quick read with a heartwarming found family trope nestled within, but it was also wrapped up in a lot of fear mongering around ghosts, which felt like a slightly off-kilter take in a book about ghost hunting. It was just fine, but like I mentioned, it has already been done, and kids seeking out adults they met online will absolutely never sit right with me. There were aspects of the story that were left dangling, but not in a way that leads me to believe there will be a follow-up book, more so in the way that leads me to feel that they were accidentally left loose.

Advice : Once again, I have to caution parents to do their research with these Scholastic Press books. If you aren’t interested in your kids reading about how to find adult men online and then meet up with them in the real world, I can’t in good conscience recommend this book to you.

The Last Resort Review

Book: The Last Resort
Author: Erin Entrada Kelly
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Year: 2025
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Just before her Grandpa Clem’s funeral, twelve-year-old Lila makes a shocking discovery. He didn’t die of natural causes – he was murdered. Possibly by someone who wanted to control his inn…and its secret portal to the afterlife. Now, a girl who’s vowed to become “less dramatic” must uncover her grandpa’s killer AND stop the ghosts desperate to make it back to our world.”

Review : The Last Resort is a super fun and enjoyable mid-grade read (grades 3-7) about the power of friendship, family, and finding places where you can be yourself. Lila, a twelve year old whose so-called best friends have described as “too much” and “overly dramatic” and, worst of all, “immature”, is ready for summer vacation so she can work on being as calm as a rock, as cool as ice, and as mature as her two besties think they are as they all head toward seventh grade next year. Her friends have stopped hanging out with her and have begun to hang out without her, she doesn’t have much time to regain their friendships. So when a relative she’s never met, Grandpa Clem, passes away unexpectedly and her family decides to travel out of state for his funeral, Lila is distraught. With the backdrop of frenemies / bullies who find Lila to be too much, we delve into Grandpa Clem’s world of ghosts, crystals, and portals to the world beyond the veil – a less than perfect scenario for a pre-teen who’s trying to be a lot less.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it was cute and fun and had some twists and turns that, while I saw coming, didn’t fully take shape until they’d arrived. It doesn’t talk down to the reader or assume the reader’s too young to understand new concepts and it presents unknowns and uncertainties in a way that makes it a true learning experience. I’m always pleased to find a middle grade read that doesn’t feel incredibly dumbed down for a kid to read and The Last Resort really held up. It did include some scary imagery, so I think this might be a proceed with caution book if you or your reader are a bit antsy when it comes to large spiders, the idea of death, or ghostly apparitions – but all in all I found it to be a safe and spooky walk on the paranormal side, perfect for fall! In the finished copy of the book, there will be ghostly illustrations who will come to life on the page via a QR code, which is such a fun addition to an already ghostly book, I think it’ll help bring the book to life in a way that’ll keep the reader thinking about it for a while.

While at Grandpa Clem’s inn, Lila meets a neighbor who’s her age, a boy named Teddy. It’s through Teddy’s friendship that Lila finds her place with someone who doesn’t view her as too much, who lets her be exactly who she is, and who doesn’t dismiss her as being an overly dramatic person. It’s an important lesson without being preachy, that bullies have no place in our lives, and that shrinking ourselves down to fit into the box of other people’s expectations makes us a shell of ourselves. In a world where even adults struggle with this concept, and even the concept of not being bullies to other adults, I found this messaging to be a refreshing change of pace from what we see day-to-day. Ultimately, Lila’s friendships are the cornerstone for this book, not the ghosts!

Finally, I gave this book 4 stars rather than 5 because I felt the ending was too abrupt and lacked the closure I wanted from it. It didn’t need to be drawn out or even significantly longer than it already is, but it would have benefitted from a little more than it received. I think the door was left open for further books down the road, and I’m not ashamed to tell you that this adult will absolutely be reading whatever Kelly comes up with next if she decides to continue this book into a series!

Advice : If you have enjoyed any iterations of Disney’s Haunted Mansion (including the ride), I think you’d enjoy The Last Resort! As advised above, if you or your reader have any squeamishness around spiders, near death experiences, dogs, crows, the threat of death, or ghosts, this might be one you approach cautiously. I think it’s the perfect amount of spooky and calm – a great way to dip the toes into a paranormal subject without diving in head first and scaring the bajeesus out of yourself.