The masterful Kate DiCamillo, twice winner of the Newbery Medal, has outdone herself with a hilarious and achingly real love story about a girl, a ghost, a grandmother and growing up. It’s the summer she turns 10, and for Ferris Wilkey, it is a summer of sheer pandemonium.

Her little sister, Pinky, has vowed to become an outlaw.

Uncle Ted has left Aunt Shirley and, to Ferris’s mother’s chagrin, is holed up in the Wilkey basement to paint a history of the world. And Charisse, Ferris’s grandmother, has started seeing a ghost in the doorway to her room – which seems like an alarming omen given that she is feeling unwell.

But the ghost is not there to usher Charisse to the Great Beyond.

Rather, she has other plans – wild, impractical, illuminating plans.

How can Ferris satisfy a spectre with Pinky terrorizing the town, Uncle Ted sending Ferris to spy on her aunt, and her father battling an invasion of raccoons?