Adapted by Scott Peterson, Meredith Laxton, & Russ Badget
Genre: Supernatural
Age Demographic: 9+
Page Count: 148
Summary: two siblings must save their stepsister from the clutches of a vengeful ghost.
Review
I am going to start by saying out of all the Mary Downing Hahn’s books, Wait Till Helen Come is rank low. The reason is this is too much of the standard ghost story. Nothing new is done.
That sets the bar low. So how does the graphic novel hold up. The artwork is nice to look at and does not overshadow the original book. Personally I would drop some of the narration boxes and let the pictures do the talking but, I do understand this graphic novel adaptation is for trying to get reluctant readers feeling like their reading a book with pictures.
I know some kids need visual aid to help with their reading. As an adaptation thumbs up for that.
Having re-read the story I appreciate the conflict of having a parent re-marry and adjust to having stepsiblings. From a kid’s perspective it trying to get alone and worrying about whose side a parent is going to take.
One thing I can not fault the book for. It how society, whether you believe in ghost or not has come to an agreement that ghost are just dead people trap on Earth with unfinish biasness.
There a scene where the ghost leads a little girl to drown in a pond. Then is frame to be misunderstood. I get the dark twist for it to work as a ghost story but, is this really the ghost of a dead girl?. How beaten in to our heads is this ghost = dead person narrative?
Leaving at that, in sum Wait Till Helen Comes is a graphic novel adaptation that help kids read. While not my favorite, some kids might find spooky.