Sometimes, when you open a door or lift a lid, you find exactly what you expected to find: coats in the coat cupboard, bread in the bread bin, toys in the toy box. And sometimes you don't.

When Sunny's parents buy an antique shop, they get more than they bargained for: in some of the old furniture, Sunny finds ghosts. Each of the ghosts has an unfulfilled desire, something they never did in their lifetime: Walter wants to learn to read, Violet wants to write a novel, Mary and Elsie want to go to the seaside. While Sunny is trying to help them all, it seems someone else is out to cause trouble…



(on previous work) There is an insistent, rhythmic quality to Moore's writing, and a dark imagination at work.



(on previous work) Moore's distinctive voice commands exceptional power.



(on previous work) Impressive and memorable.



(on previous work) It deserves to be read, and reread.



A delightful and satisfying read for any age.



Moore's charming novel, skilfully illustrated by Collins, is about an antique shop whose furniture is haunted by ghosts with unfulfilled dreams and the boy who befriends them.



★★★★★ The plot moves along quickly, and once Sunny finds one ghost, more seem to appear every day, popping up in all sorts of odd places around the shop. It's all jolly, apart from the puzzle of who, or what, is behind the trouble in the shop. Sunny's parents seem inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, and don't blame him for it, but I'm not sure they really believe his tale of ghosts either. With a little help from his spectral friends though Sunny manages to track down the trouble maker, and find a way to settle the problem. Further stories are planned so this looks like being the beginning of quite an adventure for Sunny and the Ghosts.



The story is set in an old junk shop in Devon stuffed with more than its fair share of ghosts, who arrive, wistfully attached to the bric-a-brac, in the state in which they died. There's pyjama-clad Herbert; Walter, a miner who never learned to read (Sunny teaches him); Violet, who's writing a novel (in a meta-literary touch, it turns out to be Sunny and the Ghosts); and many others, including a mischief-maker who fills the shop with cats. This is a gentle, intelligent and warm novel about friendship and imagination for children of seven and up.