Ghost of Shanghai

This meandering but visually arresting volume from a French team describes how a girl living in Shanghai meets her gui (ghost). Li, the narrator, tells about the small home she shares with her father and her mother, a factory worker whose true passion is making dresses. Most of the book is a flashback, brought on as Li straightens the hua (painting) of her gui. Li recalls that while she was delivering a dress, made by her mother, to the wealthy Ha family, she had a near-death experience, and Master Chen, her ghost, magically appeared. Master Chen promises he will ""send [her] back from where [she has] come"" if she agrees to compose a xin (letter) to his son. The narrative may be labyrinthine, but as the accompanying art takes readers through the streets of Shanghai, past canals, through a beauty salon, the Yu Garden and Old Town, they will come away with a sense of the energy and aesthetics of modern Shanghai. Subtle social commentary (e.g., a poster of Mao hangs in the kitchen of the lower-income neighbors to the affluent Ha family) will be lost on younger readers, and the overburdened prose may well be off-putting, but the paintings here offer a rare view of an exotic city. Glimpses into the homes and thoroughfares of a place halfway around the globe are studies in contrasts: lace tablecloths share space with striped carpeting and curtains in opposing floral patterns; an electric ""slow cooker"" sits alongside an ancient urn. In this book, the pictures tell the real story. Ages 5-9. (Sept.)