Ghostly Tales

Loveable, imperfect Dorrie returns, with her distracted working single mother, the Big Witch. This time, it's up to Dorrie to save the Amazing Magic Elixer when her mother has to leave the house for a few minutes. My three year old loves the Dorrie books. Interspersed with plenty of big words, there are lots of familiar words and phrases so he can "help" read. "This is Dorrie. She is a witch . . ." and "Down, down down the stairs went Dorrie, and Gink went with her." The Big Witch has a career, gets distracted, has headaches, forgets things, and is cross. Working moms like me don't feel like we are competing with the perfect moms in other kids books (I love Marc Brown and his books, but doesn't Arthur's mom ever get headaches???)

I can't imagine that very many people would find the four stories in this book particuarly scary. The cover art makes the book look far more terrifying than it is (although I did like the picture). But it's still a good book. Each story is about one of the four sisters from Little Women. In each story, the girl is ten, and she encounters a ghost or spirit. I enjoyed the story with Beth the most, but the Meg and Jo ones were very good as well. Amy's was somewhat dissapointing, because I didn't really understand the end of it. I still give the collection four stars, because I really enjoyed the other three. If you enjoyed the other books in this series, you will most likely enjoy this one as well.