“Would you like to adopt a ghost?

Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a speciality.

If interested, place outside your home three twigs, in the shape of an arrow, pointing to your front door…”

Ruby and Jayden get more than they bargained for, when they adopt the ghost of Edward Fitzberranger. He’s a boy from Victorian times, has left his haunted house without permission and is living in Ruby’s wardrobe.

When they find out he can time-travel, they find themselves in the Second World War, with bombs falling and a royal kidnapping plot. Simon Fitzberranger and his Anti-War Party offer a solution – but is he all he seems?

This first book is a new series featuring young Edward Fitzberranger the ghost from the Childish Spirits series that ran from 2014 to 2018. Edward is looking for a new home to live in now that Ellie and her family are no longer at the manor house he haunted.

Edward takes an advert out in the local paper which can only be seen by those who have the power to see ghosts. The advert is read by Ruby and her new annoying neighbour Jayden. Both are sceptical but Jayden decides to follow the instructions and leads Edward to Ruby’s house, which she is less than impressed about.

Edward has gained some new skills since the first series, he can now time travel and take others with him. The children decide they would like to see the 1960s but Edward gets pulled further into the past to wartime Britain and the 1940s when an anti-war party is trying to take control of the country and make peace with Germany.

Why have the trio been pulled into the 1940s and how can they stop the government being overthrown and thwart a royal kidnapping plot?

The Fighting Spirit took me back to the first series, and I was happy to be back in the spirit world with Edward. I wasn’t so sure of the new characters, Ruby and Jayden, as they came across as younger and more annoying than Ellie and her family did, but I hope they grow on me and mature over the new books to come.

The plot was adventurous and exciting. The ghostly activity was spot on without feeling too scary for young readers. The scenes from the 1940s came across as authentic and you could tell the author had done plenty of research.

This is a book that children can become fully invested in. It showcases good versus evil and the lengths some will go to to get their own way. It is also a story of hope and freedom and will teach youngsters what the war was about.

Rob Keeley was born in Wirral, Merseyside, UK. Writing his first story aged seven, his first short play aged eleven and first being published at fifteen, he wrote for several magazines before his first book for children, The Alien in the Garage and Other Stories, was published in 2011. He has since written three more collections of children’s stories, one of which, The Dinner Club and Other Stories, was longlisted for the International Rubery Book Award. He has now published all five novels in his Spirits series, the first of which, Childish Spirits, gained him a Distinction for his MA in Creative Writing before being longlisted for the Bath Children’s Novel Award and the WriteMentor Award and nominated for the People’s Book Prize. The second novel in the series, The Spirit of London, was highly commended for the Independent Author Book Awards in 2016 before book four, High Spirits, won at the succeeding Georgina Hawtrey-Woore Awards in 2018. He has published two standalone children’s novels (The Treasure in the Tower and The Teacher Who Knew Too Much) and two picture books for young children. In 2022 his first novel for adults Death At Friar’s Inn was e-published. He has also written a stage play Mr Everyone and has BBC writing experience with Chain Gang and Newsjack for Radio 4 Extra.

Rob has studied Screenwriting and Filmmaking, has been a judge for the IGGY and Litro Young Writers’ Prize and is a supporter of the Children’s Media Foundation. His books have been used in schools, libraries and at literary festivals and he is in demand for his author workshops, which one teacher even described as “inspirational”! During lockdown he was Children’s Writer in Residence at the Stay at Home Literary Festival. Most recently, he has been seen at the Wirral Arts Festival and World Book Day events. In 2024 he was nominated for a Fearless Freelancer award at the Northern Cultural and Education Awards, for his workshops with young people. Also in 2024, Childish Spirits celebrated its tenth anniversary with a new, special edition.