Title: The Ghost Collector
Author: Allison Mills
Publication Date: September 10, 2019
Publisher: Annick Press
Format: NetGalley eARC

I don’t read as many works inspired by American Indian or First Nations cultures as I’d like, so when I saw this, I jumped on it immediately.

Mid-grade has been so hit or miss for me lately, because I’ve found a lot of it just ends up being too young for me. What?! I hear you say. You, who’s nearly 30, are now too old for mid-grade?! I know. Color me shocked, too. Who would’ve guessed? With this book, though, I was pleasantly surprised, because it did have the sort of depth I look for in books.

The Ghost Collector is the heartbreaking tale of a daughter waiting for her mother’s spirit to come back, and also the lively, funny story of all the other spirits she meets along the way.

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but I loved the idea of it, and I was surprised just how much I ended up enjoying it. I’ve been looking for some books for my own mid-grade reader, and this one ticked all the boxes for me. I would definitely recommend it for any mid-grade readers who are dealing with grief and loss themselves.

❧ I appreciated how this book normalizes Cree culture, rather than presenting it as “exotic” or “other.”

I don’t often think authors intend to do this, but I do notice that it happens a lot. Shelly is proud of her Cree heritage, but it isn’t the defining feature about her. She’s not reduced to being “this Cree character.” Nor is she held as a sort of comparison for all these other non-Cree characters.

This is certainly no dissertation about Cree culture, but there are little aspects of the culture that were slipped in that I thought would serve as a great place to start the conversation with mid-grade readers on other cultures, particularly First Nations.

For example, hair is important in Cree culture, and they believe it’s essentially an extension of the soul, which is often cut following the death of a family member. These Cree beliefs come up in small ways sometimes, like the fact that there are drums at Shelly’s mother’s funeral, which ends up being slightly different from what one might expect from a traditional, say, Christian funeral.

❧ Hidden in the arguments between Shelly’s mother and grandmother over whether she should be involved in ghosts seems to be this really poignant implication about culture being passed down through the generations.

Shelly’s mother grew up with ghosts, and for whatever reason, as an adult, she turned her back on that lifestyle. But Shelly’s grandmother wants to teach Shelly about the ghosts—something that’s been directly passed down through their Cree lineage and is a unique talent most people don’t have. It’s not in-your-face obvious, but I thought it was really interesting how it spoke to this generational culture divide that often happens with any sort of minority (and any sort of immigrant, even) where it’s a hard choice between assimilating to the society they live in and wanting to retain part of their culture. Unfortunately, poor Shelly ends up stuck smack in the middle of all this, and of course no one asks her opinion on the matter.

This is such an important topic faced by so many people in today’s world, and yet often never discussed, and while the author doesn’t go in depth on the subject, she does a great job of making it matter in even little everyday things.

Right down to the way Shelly is taunted and bullied at school for believing in ghosts, which is a part of her heritage, when no one in her class does. And her mother’s solution is just … don’t talk about ghosts. Even though it’s obviously a big part of who she is.

❧ That moment when someone has to explain to the protagonist what a tape deck is, and her mother is talking about recording songs off the radio when she was young, and wow, you’ve just realized how old you are.

The protagonist of this story, I am not. Not anymore! Which actually makes this almost more interesting to me, because it’s really easy to see my own daughter as the protagonist, and it makes the events of this story all the more impactful from an entirely different (and maybe slightly unexpected) angle. She’s a mid-grade reader, and I can see her loving this book, but for entirely different reasons from mine. It was super easy for me to straddle both sides of this: from a mother, terrified of leaving her daughter behind, and as a daughter, who would have been devastated if her mother had died at that age.

❧ While there are certainly a lot of heavy moments in this book, it isn’t all dark, and there were so many fun personalities to enjoy.

Because what’s a book without its characters? Shelley’s grandmother was definitely a highlight for me, because she was proud and stubborn but also funny and doing her best. But a lot of the characters in this book are ghosts, and I loved them just as much. Like Estelle, who knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t going to let anyone tell her otherwise. Or Joseph, the teen who was into music and kept watch over the cemetery. It added a lot of little fun moments to the story and some much-needed levity.

❧ The ghosts themselves were for sure a highlight for me in this book, because they all had such personality!

Shelly meets a lot of ghosts in her travels. As you do. Some are ready to move on, and some not so much. There was just such a variety with them, and I loved meeting a whole range of ghosts and seeing their circumstances.

The best part: as per the Cree worldview, humans aren’t the only creatures that become ghosts, which means plenty of encounters with formerly fuzzy critter spirits, too.

I loved all the little forms this could take, and how Shelly and her grandmother reacted to the spirits versus their customers. There was a little bit of an inside joke about how often people think they’re being haunted by a malicious poltergeist that’s out for their mortal soul when really it’s just a couple of harmless mouse spirits. Which made me laugh, of course, because that sounds about right.

❧ This book hurt my feels in all the right ways, because while it is about death and grief, it’s also about life and acceptance.

Though it deals with death, it doesn’t wax philosophical about grief and losing someone. Instead, the power is in the subtle ways it portrays the grieving process. It’s in the quiet moments after death, absorbing it, dying inside while you try to carry on. It’s in the way you’re forced to return to everyday life like nothing’s changed, even though everything has. It’s the image of a little girl sitting on her mother’s bed, waiting, because she’s so dang certain that her mother’s ghost will come for her. Just oof.

The way this book tackles grief is so accessible, especially for mid-grade readers, in my opinion, because it doesn’t just wallow in it, but shows the little ways grief can sneak up on a person.

Because, surprise, surprise, kids don’t grieve like adults. Shelly, especially, has been around death all her life, so that’s nothing new. She knew what death was, but she never quite understood it. So what this book really is, is an exploration of that.

❧ While I wouldn’t say this is a typical coming of age story, necessarily, Shelly does manage to find herself, and I really enjoyed the growth.

She acts about how you would expect a child whose mother just died to act. She’s lost. She’s confused. She’s trying really hard to make sense of this new world she’s been thrust into. Really, Shelly’s just trying to figure out what the heck it means to be Shelly.

I’m always up for a good character arc, and I really enjoyed this one—partly because it was so stinking relatable, even at my age, and partly because of the journey Shelly takes.

It’s not quite a normal means of finding one’s self. Probably because ghosts are involved. But as an adult, it’s easy to start to see the not-so-great choices, the semi-spiraling emotions, and knowing that, eventually, things are going to have to give.

❧ I would’ve personally liked to see more of the ghosts, since some of their arcs felt a bit incomplete.

I’m the sort that likes things to feel done when it ends, but there were still questions I had about some of the ghosts and what became of them, etc. There was also a part at the end that I didn’t quiet understand why something happened, either. It’s such a little nitpicky thing, but by the time I finished the book, I still just kept wondering, like, “What ever happened to so-and-so?”

What’s one lesser-explored culture that you’d like to see more books written about?