Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost

“Will make a theater lover of any young reader.” —Booklist​​

Perfect for fans of The Wednesday Wars, this raucous and delightful middle grade mystery from Edgar Award–nominated author Martha Freeman is filled with backstage fun, relatable family drama, and maybe even a ghost.

Break a leg! That’s what you say to actors when what you mean is Have a good show!. Anything else is bad luck. But when Miss Magnus literally breaks her leg, eleven-year-old Noah McNichol and the rest of the Plattsfield Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Players are out of luck, left without a director for their production of Hamlet. Coach Fig comes to the rescue—sort of. He’ll direct, even though he is clearly more interested in whatever is happening on his phone than in directing. He doesn’t even know upstage from downstage! But then something weird happens: out of nowhere appears a strangely dressed old guy named Mike. He tells Noah he has theater experience, before disappearing—poof.

Noah has some investigating to do and some decisions to make. Like, does he care more that their new director might be a ghost or about getting to make his stage debut? And who is Mike and why has he decided to help? As things get weirder and weirder, one thing becomes clear: The show must go on, and Noah will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

Martha Freeman worked as a reporter and teacher before becoming a full-time writer of books for young readers, including the Edgar Award­–nominated Zap!, Born Curious, The Secret Cookie Club series, Who Stole Halloween?, and Effie Starr Zook Has One More Question, which School Library Journal called “accessible and exciting” in a starred review. She also collaborated with NASA astronaut Mark Kelly on the Astrotwins books. Martha lives in Colorado. Learn more at MarthaFreeman.com.