The Manitou Bell - Amdahl, Kenn

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Résumé :

An original and compelling ghost story/time travel adventure- sweet and charming, but also dark, haunting, and disturbing. Vivid, elegant writing from an author usually associated with humor and nonfiction.

Is eleven-year-old Charles's old house haunted? If it is, maybe his very-scientific attempts to learn magic in the 1950s had the weird side-effect of summoning the ghosts of people from 1897. These include a sweet kid who needs his help, but also frightening and dangerous adults. An old bell might possess a power he doesn't understand and a young goat could be a manitou (a magic animal). Or, is Charles simply as delusional as his brother and his therapist believe?

Charles clashes with outlaw Soapy Smith's gang; he encounters Johannes Brahms as an old man and a little boy named Bram Stoker. He meets some crusty old frontier scouts and must escape from a brutal Arapaho warrior with her own magic powers and her own dark delusions.
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Praise for There Are No Electrons (also by Kenn Amdahl):
Fascinating and fun! We all feel somewhat dumb when it comes to electronics. There Are No Electrons would be a proper tonic for this ignorance. -- Ray Bradbury