Forever Home by Jenna Ayoub

  Willow, a biracial girl whose parents are both in the military, is determined to stay put in her latest new home. She doesn't care how old the house is and she certainly doesn't care that it just happens to be haunted. Willow is far too worried about whether the ghosts' pranks will scare her parents away, forcing her to move yet again, to have any fears about their paranormal presence.

The story begins with the Hadleigh sisters, who refused to leave their home in life or death, scaring away two amateur ghost catchers. Enter Willow, accompanied by her German Shepherd Fenrir, who is the first to be able to see the ghosts. There are the sisters, Gladys and Viola, the unnamed Lady whose "fourth fiancee" left her the house (his fate remains unknown, although the Lady mysteriously "lost" a large number of husbands and fiancees.) and Thomas, a young solder from WWI who is remarkably silent on exactly how - and why - he's haunting a house he never lived in.

Ayoub's art has lots of pastels and gives a humorous look at a loving, diverse family and the kooky ghosts that inhabit their new house. Willow's parents work together to paint, fix, and repair the house and although a lot of the plot revolves around Willow's worries that they'll move, it turns out to be a misunderstanding. They're welcoming of the ghosts, even though they don't see them, and there's a lot of thoughts about home and choosing a family woven through the book.

Mostly thought, it's just a good, and funny, story! Episodes that seem like they might be frightening at first, like the demonic cat, quickly flip over to the humorous and Willow's gentle teasing of book-loving ghost Thomas is a recurring motif throughout the story, as is his reluctant admission that he does love romance novels!

Verdict: This won't necessarily fly off your shelves like the splashier graphic novels, but it's full of quiet humor and hope and is a funny and satisfying story which will especially resonate with kids who have dealt with a lot of change in their lives and will sympathize with Willow's longing for a permanent home.

ISBN: 9781684156030; Published February 2021 by Kaboom; Borrowed from another library in my consortium; Purchased for my personal library