A coming-of-age narrative about ghosts, friendship, and family secrets.Jake Baker is a neurosurgeon who takes us back to the summer when he was 12 years old and growing up amid the tackiness of Niagara Falls, a landscape desperately in need of redemption. Although Jake is something of a loner, he hits it off with two kids new to the neighborhood, Billy and Dove Yellowbird. While Billy is the same age as Jake, Dove is two years older, and Jake is immediately smitten by her strength and self-confidence. There to help them all in their transition out of childhood is Jake's eccentric Uncle Cal, like Jake, an "odd duck" who is almost like a child himself. Cal owns a shop called the Occultorium and has over time "cultivated a network of mystics and paranoiacs and those who saw the world at a different skew." Through motivations mysterious even to himself, Cal proposes that they form a Saturday Night Ghost Club to explore arcane places around their neighborhood, including a Screaming Tunnel ("Cataract City's most famous haunted spot"), a car that has been submerged for years in the bend of a river, and the remains of a house that had been ravaged by fire. As he moves through these adventures, Jake transitions from being terrified to accommodating himself to both the strangeness of his uncle and the strangeness of the world. Through his parents, Jake eventually learns how Cal is connected to each of the venues he takes the children to even though Cal himself doesn't understand the depth of these connections. As a result of these experiences during this memorable summer when he's on the cusp of adolescence, Jake's understanding and compassion are enlarged: tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.Through the intensity of his characters' experiences, Davidson reconnects us to our own memories of growing up. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Davidson's well-crafted, whimsical coming-of-age tale (after Cataract City) follows a fateful summer in the '80s. Twelve-year-old Jake Baker navigates between being bullied and exploring mysticism in his Niagara Falls hometown. The sleepy town is stagnant aside from tourists, and impressionable Jake doesn't have many prospects for the summer aside from visiting the occult shop owned by his Uncle Calvin, who believes in the spirit world. Calvin encourages friendship between his nephew and new residents Billy Yellowbird and his sister, Dove, and invites them to a ghost hunting club. Jake is smitten by Dove, who, at 14, flits in and out of the club, while Jake and Billy raptly follow Calvin and his friend, Lexington, a devotee to Betamax, on weekend exploits. The meetings kick off with Calvin telling the tragic story behind each of the ghostly places they visit before they investigate the areas. Their group visits "The Screaming Tunnel," a car accident site, the charred remains of a house, and a graveyard. Over the course of the summer, the hidden connection behind the locations reveals itself to Jake. Davidson creates a quirky landscape and colorful characters, resulting in a novel that will entertain readers while providing a nice dose of nostalgia. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Toronto brain surgeon and father Jake Baker looks back on the 1980s; specifically his twelfth summer, when he often bullied, ""spacey and bookish, scared of every little thing"" learned what sorts of monsters were worth fearing. Hanging out in his dear uncle Calvin's paranomal-oddities shop, the Occultorium, he meets Billy Yellowbird, who's new to Niagara Falls, dissatisfied with the plans for his beloved grandmother's upcoming burial, and longing to speak with her. Uncle C suggests they break into the funeral home to visit her body, thereby calling to order the first meeting of the Saturday Night Ghost Club. Joined by Billy's older sister, Dove, and video-store owner Lex, they visit spooky places of local lore, but it all leads to a mystery much closer to home. Davidson (Cataract City, 2014), who often writes about friendship, fighting, and Niagara Falls, rifles through the freneticism of growing up with well-timed humor, meaningful drama, and genuine characters. Investigating the uncanny goings-on of youth through the nostalgic film of adulthood, this is a little bit Wonder Years meets Stranger Things.--Annie Bostrom Copyright 2019 Booklist