E. W. Hildick (1925–2001)

In this first book in the Ghost Squad series, Danny Green has come to grips with the fact he's dead. His siblings, Jilly and Mike, at 8 and 10 are working their way through childhood problems without him. Then he meets Joe, Karen and Carlos....other ghosts who want desperately to talk to someone alive. The four ghosts figure out how to talk to Danny's friends from school -- Wacko and Buzz -- by using a word processor. They become.....(da dah daaaaaa!) The Ghost Squad! Joining together to solve crimes and mysteries, the ghosts and live nerdy kids work together to foil bullies, robbers and other nefarious sorts.

This story read like an old ABC After School Special. I loved it!

Published in 1984, this book is cute, but dated. I happened across a copy purely by accident and just had to read it. :) I'm a sucker for old OOP kids books. :) The story is a quick read and enjoyable. The group of friends are like an 80s version of the Scooby Doo Gang sans dog. Fun story. This is actually the first book in a series of six. I'm going to try to weasel up the other books online. I enjoyed this first one enough to want to read the rest. The outdated computer jargon alone made it worth it. I remember the first klunky word processors....nothing more than a glorified typewriter with those lovely glow in the dark green or street light orange letters glowing....and the accompanying loud, shaking, slowwwww dot matrix printers. The mental picture of two living boys leaning into their word processor to talk to four ghost kids while plotting how to foil some bullies and robbers made me smile. Just too fun a story to pass up!

E.W. Hildick wrote many other middle-grade books including the McGurk Mystery series and The Top-Flight Fully-Automated Junior High School Girl Detective (I absolutely have to find a copy of this book just for the title!). This series is a bit dated, but since 80s nostalgia is popular right now, the books would be a fun read for computer-loving middle grade students and adults. :) Updated a bit, this would make a cute premise for a kids' show on Disney Channel or Nickelodeon.

I looked around online a bit....there are plenty of used copies of this old OOP series floating around online for cheap. Definitely worth a read. Well-written, cute and enjoyable!… (meer)