The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein

Zack is a little boy with a past.  His mother died of cancer, but he is not in deep mourning.  His mother had been verbally abusive of him his whole life, and has left deep emotional scars.  As the story begins his father has just married again to a woman who is a children's book author, and they are moving to a new house in the town where the father grew up.  In their new yard is a large tree that has a roadside shrine on it.  It is the place where, years ago, there had been a tragic bus accident that had killed dozens of people.  One of the widows comes every week to put flowers on the shrine.  Zack has a bad feeling about the tree, and soon ghosts start popping up everywhere.  Most are friendly, but others are out for revenge. Both Zack and his new stepmother get caught up in trying to figure out how to free the spirits and allow them to move on, or in the case of one of the spirits, force him to move on before he kills again. I am not one who really enjoys scary stuff.  I try to avoid scary movies and I don't read scary books often.  Even though this is a ghost story, it isn't really that scary. Actually, the scariest parts of it are the flashbacks that show how emotionally cruel Zack's first mother had been.  Still, the ghost stuff is a little scary, scary enough to build suspense and keep me engaged in the story.  The characterizations were quite good, and the relationship between Zack and his new stepmom is sweet and satisfying. Not a bad choice for kids who like a little bit of spooky. (325 p.)