This is the second book in a trilogy of youth novels called “Ghosts of Ordinary Objects,” because the protagonist, twelve-year-old Bone Phillips, has inherited a gift – the ability to see happenings from the past by holding objects. Bone is living in a coal camp near Virginia’s New River. Her mother is dead, and her father is fighting in World War II. All she has left is her best friend, Will Kincaid, whose father died in the coal mines. Will she lose him or gain a deeper relationship if she uses her gift to learn more about Will’s dad by holding his jelly jar? The author, Angie Smibert, grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, and now lives in Roanoke. She is the author of several youth books of both fiction and non-fiction and worked for ten years at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Honesdale, Pennsylvania: Boyd’s Mill Press/Highlights, 2019. 176 pages. Hardback in dust jacket.