Twelve-year-old Molly isn't happy that her mom has remarried, and she's even less thrilled when her new blended family moves to an old converted church far out in the country. The graveyard behind the church frightens Molly, but her new stepsister, 7-year-old Heather, is strangely drawn to it. Molly soon discovers that Heather's imaginary friend, Helen, isn't quite so imaginary. Helen is the ghost of a drowned girl, and she may be leading Heather to the same fate...unless Molly can stop her.
I read this book for the first time when I was 9 or 10, and I probably read it at least 20 times in the 3 or 4 years that followed. I recently read it again as an adult, and I was so happy to discover that a book I loved so much when I was growing up has withstood the test of time. Aside from a few dated references,
Wait Till Helen Comes
feels timeless. It's an inventive, well-told, and eerie ghost story.
Hahn's writing is age-appropriate, but doesn't feel "dumbed down" in the least; the writing is fantastic, actually. Her prose is beguiling, weaving an atmosphere that is rich with detail and rife with tension. You can feel the oppression of a stifling summer day, just as you can feel the chill of an otherworldly presence. As a pre-teen, I remember feeling truly chilled by some of the spookier scenes, and I'm not too proud to admit that some of those scenes still haunt me to this day (in particular, the scene in which Helen trashes Molly's and Michael's rooms and their mother's art studio, as well as the climax at Harper Pond).
What makes this novel such a great one for pre-teens, though, is not necessarily that it's a ghost story. The relationships and issues that Hahn explores in
Wait Till Helen Comes
also lend to its timeless quality: the dynamics of a blended family, the nature of forgiveness and acceptance...great lessons, all wrapped up in a spooky, well-written package.
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From the Publisher
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| The Puppet's Payback and Other Chilling Tales | Wait Till Helen Comes | The Old Willis Place | Guest | |
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| Read More Bone Chilling Tales by Mary Downing Hahn | The author of wildly popular ghost stories, Mary Downing Hahn has created a group of tales for fans of her "scary but not too scary" books. | A suspenseful yarn about two children who dislike their malicious younger stepsister, Heather—and tensions that escalate when Heather starts talking to a ghost named Helen. | Mary Downing Hahn weaves a tale of two children who live near a decaying Victorian mansion, bound to the place by a mysterious set of rules. | A tale of malicious sprites called the Kinde Folke who snatch Mollie's baby brother and replace him with a hideous changeling, and of Mollie's journey through eerie, perilous lands to save him. |
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| Mary Downing Hahn is at her chilling best in this supernatural tale, where the long-buried secret of a young girl's death in a canoe accident relentlessly makes its way to the surface of an idyllic vacation. | Past and present are connected in surprising ways when boys from two different eras change places in this suspenseful, compelling tale. | The eerie tale of a mischievous brother and sister who pretend their grandmother's Vermont inn is haunted and awaken the real spirits who inhabit the place. | The chilling tale of a girl imprisoned for more than a century, the terrifying events that put her there, and a friendship that crosses the boundary between past and present. |
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| Dan is forced to believe that a witch called Old Auntie is real when his little sister, Erica, is "took" to become Auntie's slave for the next fifty years. | The haunting tale of a mysterious doll discovered in a young girl's garden, and its owner, a girl from seventy years in the past, who wants it back. | Two friends set out to solve the years-old mystery of a murder, testing their friendship and placing them in danger, in this creepy thriller by suspense master Mary Downing Hahn. | In this chilling Gothic tale an orphan girl sent to live in Crutchfield Hall finds the place haunted by the ghost of her cousin Sophia, who is bent on revenge. |
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Reviews with images
Love it!
This book was so hard to find! My teachers read it to us in 3rd grade. My little one is going into 4th. After years of searching. I finally found it. She's definitely a reader. She is almost done with it already!
Top reviews from other countries
helenmelon
WAIT TILL HELEN COMES BOOK
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2012