Nina Tanleven

For sixth-grader Nina Tanleven, nothing is scarier than auditioning for a play at the famous old Grand Theater. But Nina changes her mind when she climbs on stage to audition - and sees a ghost sitting in the audience! Then, even stranger things happen. Scripts are ripped up, sets are knocked down, and everyone fears the ghost wants to stop the play. Everyone, of course, except Nina and her best friend Chris.

Nina Tanleven and her best friend Chris are delighted to spend the remainder of the summer with Nina’s architect father at the rambling old country inn he has been hired to restore. On the afternoon they arrive, the girls pause for a closer look at some faded Civil War photographs hanging in the hallway, fascinated by one picture in particular of a handsome Confederate soldier whose dreamy eyes hold them enthralled. But in the midst of all their oohing and aahing a shivery sensation passes between them, like an icy hand on the back of their necks.

Sixth-grader Nina Tanleven knows that old Mrs. Watson’s spike-roofed, dark green house is haunted. She feels the ghost as soon as she walks toward the faded porch. But when Nina climbs the stairs to look for an antique wardrobe in the tower room, she has to wonder what else the spooky mansion is hiding. Soon Nina is in the company of a ghostly crying child, a long-dead artist, and a gruesome, hypnotic painting. To break the dark spell surrounding the house, she will have to join forces with these shadowy spirits.