Bernie and the Bessledorf Ghost

By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor   ISBN 068931499X

For readers, especially tweens, this is a wonderfully comfortable read.  Lovers of mysteries will be pleased with the good, steady pace of the plot and the solution to this mystery will be quite touching and make somewhat sense to a number of the readers whether they be tweens or just general readers.

There is always something in this book to hold the interest of the reader be it the maneuvering and sleuthing activities of Bernie, the main character, or the supportive efforts of Bernie’s eccentric family as everyone in the family bands together to bring an end to the mystery of the nightly re-appearance of a ghostly boy, who coincidently appears to share Bernie’s age, eleven years.

Bernie’s mother, an imaginative person possibly due to the fact that she is a romance writer, leaps to the immediate conclusion that this boy wants to take Bernie away.  With this motivation, Bernie immediately gains his mother’s support and therefore also his father’s in the nightly mystery activities that take over the entire household and even the hotel occupants.  Readers who engage in a good amount of library use may especially get a laugh at Bernie’s imaginative use of his local library.  Bernie takes library use seriously.

While this work is part of a series of books that feature Bernie and his family, the Magruders, this work can be enjoyed on its own by readers who are totally new to this wonderfully entertaining family circle and tweens will be able to identify with the initiative efforts that Bernie, the main character, puts into this mystery solving.