Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost

- Blurb -

"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.