A summer by the sea turns into a haunting mystery when two sisters discover that a local lighthouse hides more than just a light.
Angelica Del Campo collaborates with Eisner Award-winning artist Liniers in The Ghost of Wreckers Cove, a middle-grade graphic novel that balances atmospheric mystery with emotional depth. The story follows sisters Cristina and Martha, who anticipate a boring summer with their father in a remote coastal Maine village. Their boredom is short-lived when they meet Ida, a mysterious girl who appears and disappears at will, leading the siblings into a local legend involving a vanished lighthouse keeper and ship wreckers who once lured vessels to their doom. As the sisters piece together the clues of this century-old puzzle, they also confront their own recent loss, learning that some ghosts are memories we aren’t ready to let go of.
For educators seeking to support students who find traditional novels daunting, this book offers a compelling alternative. The narrative tackles complex themes of grief and empathy, but presents them through an accessible graphic format. Liniers’ expressive watercolor illustrations provide essential scaffolding for English language learners; a student struggling to parse the text of a spooky scene can rely on the changing color palette and character expressions to grasp the mood and stakes immediately. The dialogue is authentic and succinct, mixing modern sibling banter with the mystery’s unfolding clues, which keeps the pacie brisk enough to hold the attention of reluctant readers. While the vocabulary includes specific maritime terms, these are contextualized clearly within the visual storytelling. Praised by Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal for its tender approach to loss, this story allows developing readers to engage with a sophisticated emotional arc without the barrier of fatigue-inducing prose.
