I appreciated too how open-ended Conrad left the story, too. This isn't a sanitary ghost mystery by any means, but it isn't meant to be a horror story either. This item is Non-Returnable Details add ISBN-13: 9780590462068 ISBN-10: 0590462067 Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks Publish Date: September 1992 Dimensions: 7.63 x 5.27 x 0.33 inches Shipping Weight: 0. This book gets disgusting, and the relationship between Zoe and Zoe Louise defies pigeon-holing. Conrad is the award-winning author of Stone Words, Prairie Songs, and Prairie Visions. 'Stonewords' falls into the rare category of might-as-well-call-it-that vintage children's book that works on multiple levels and holds up to modern scrutiny. Publishers can't deny anymore that there is a great deal of thinking going on at young ages and they don't all want to read about underpants or ponies. It's no secret that, in general, despite all of these books about beautiful 'fierce' girls battling or becoming vampires, toppling future societies blah blah blah, young adult and juvenile books are getting better. Only, no one else can see her and there is something wrong about Zoe Louise that becomes more obvious with each year, with Zoe growing older and Zoe Louise staying the same age. Zoe discovers that her house is occupied by the ghost of an eleven-year-old girl, who carries her back to the day of her death in 1870 to try to alter that. Thankfully, she meets Zoe Louise, a girl her own age who lives in the same house. Despite their best efforts, Zoe's grandparents can't protect her from the loneliness she feels. Zoe is brought to live with her grandparents at a very young age, left behind by her mother.

There's something about dark supernatural elements that goes hand in hand with a complicated home life. It is exactly the kind of book I would have loved.

I had never heard of this book growing up.

Stonewords by pam conrad