Can the dead talk to the living?
American Spirits
The Famous Fox Sisters and the Mysterious Fad that Haunted a Nation
By Barb Rosenstock
Astra Publishing (Calkins Creek)
ISBN: 978-1-324-01607-6
Age: 12 years and up
Pre-order now (available April 15, 2025):
Bookshop.org | Amazon
Rap. Rap. Rap. The eerie sound was first heard in March of 1848 at the home of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York. The family’s two daughters, Kate and Maggie, soon discovered that they could communicate with the spirit that was making these uncanny noises; he told them he had been a traveling peddler who had been murdered.
This strange incident, and the ones that followed, generated a media frenzy beyond anything the Fox sisters could have imagined. Kate and Maggie, managed (or perhaps manipulated) by their elder sister Leah, became famous spirit mediums, giving public exhibitions, and advising other celebrities of their day.
AMERICAN SPIRITS is the true story of celebrity sisters Maggie, Kate and Leah Fox, creators of the séance in America. Set around the Civil War, it’s nonfiction for mystery-loving teens as well as adult historical fiction fans. A real life ghost story about truth, lies, and how we tell the difference.
Reviews
“Gather around the table and dim the lights. Clap. Clap. Clap. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of young readers applauding Barb Rosenstock’s American Spirits, a compelling, dramatic, wonderfully strange, yet entirely true ghost story. Gullibility and fakery; obscurity and celebrity; religion, history and biography. It’s all here, and it’s utterly mesmerizing.”
— Candace Fleming, Sibert Medalist
“The Fox sisters captivated their neighbors, friends, detractors, and all of America. This book will captivate readers—with great storytelling, rigorous research, the truth—and no trickery!”
— Deborah Heiligman, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction for Vincent and Theo
“Both a personal story of the three Fox sisters and a unique look at mid-nineteenth-century history, American Spirits has it all: rise to power, fame, greed, love, lost love, and fall from grace, all recounted blow by blow in the frenzied media coverage of the day.”
—Elizabeth Partridge, National Book Award Finalist, 2023 Sibert Medalist for Seen and Unseen
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