The Ghosts of Rose Hill by R. M. Romero

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Ghosts of Rose Hill by R. M. Romero Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Romero, R. M. The Ghosts of Rose Hill. Peachtree Teen, 2022 [452p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781682633380 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781682634462 $11.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 7-10 When her grades start slipping, sixteen-year-old Ilana Lopez is shipped off to Prague to stay with her aunt Žofie, with instructions from her parents to focus on her studies and give up playing the violin. To Ilana’s surprise, she’s mostly left to her own devices by her nonplussed aunt, and while wandering an abandoned Jewish cemetery near Žofie’s cottage, she meets Benjamin, a ghost of a boy now a century dead, and the two quickly form a deep bond out of shared loneliness. On a shopping trip, Ilana also encounters the enigmatic Rudolf Wassermann, not quite a ghost but most certainly supernatural, who gives her a violin and urges her to practice. Eventually, she discovers Benjamin’s connection to Wassermann and to the missing children under Wassermann’s care, and Ilana realizes she must contend with an evil that has stalked Prague’s streets for far too long. Dreamy verse makes for an organic introduction to ghosts and Jewish folklore but remains rooted in the history of Prague and Ilana’s struggles to negotiate her parents’ immigrant identities: her dad escaped from communist-controlled Prague and her mother from Castro’s Cuba. Vivid, unsettling metaphors evoke the horrors of oppression of Jews in Czechoslovakia, while Wassermann himself is the terrifying, haunting specter of violence born out of a lust for power. Readers of Podos’ From Dust, a Flame (BCCB 1/22) will find satisfaction in this mix of family drama, Jewish history, and the supernatural. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois