The Ghost Tree

Gr 2-5–Asim loves everything spooky, thanks to his mom’s tales of mythical creatures from her childhood in Guyana. Unlike his mom, the fourth grader believes those monsters are real, just like the ghosts in the cemetery he avoids on his way to school. When a class project inspecting local biomes takes his class to the graveyard (and to an evil tree with a ghastly face that oozes black goo), it opens up Lion’s Gate’s secrets about the strange happenings that surround its island residents. As the goo turns people into smelly, grumpy fiends who eat anything in sight—even bugs!—Asim’s newfound crew (including science-minded Rokshar and foodie Max) must use their scientific wits and ghost smarts to defeat the tree and save their town. This is a delightfully creepy adventure with an enjoyable educational component. Readers will observe the sleuths using the scientific method to draw various conclusions about the tree and its effects while encountering advanced terms like hypothesis, temperate, and coniferous. Delightful gray scale illustrations accentuate key scenes, breathing life into Deen’s characters and providing additional information about supernatural figures from diverse cultures. Notes from Asim’s journal in the back matter lend an endearing dimension of authenticity, and an author’s note includes more information about Dutchman tree lore. Asim is depicted with brown skin and hair; secondary characters have a range of skin tones.