SOLVED: Young Adult ghost books in a southern setting...? [s]

[Mark]

I vaguely remember reading some books as a kid about the inhabitants of a manor (I think in the Southern United States) who discovered the histories of ghosts that dwelled in the house. Only name I remember was Toby - one of the ghosts.

I remember lots of mist and willows and water in the stories, and the family history had an aristocratic bend.

Ring any bells?

[Shauna]

Children of Greene Knowe series by L.M. Boston has ghosts named Toby, Alexander, and Lynnet who make friends with a lonely boy, Tolly, staying in the Englush manor house with his Great-grandmother Mrs. Oldknowe. Is that the one you were thinking of?

[Mark]

That's it! Don't know where I got the southern thing from, but the rest clicks. Now I'll have to find them and read them again. Thanks.

[Kate]

Actually the first Blossom Culp book was the one from Alexander's perspective, called The Ghost Belonged to Me. In that one, Blossom tells Alexander there is a spirit in his barn and that he can help it. I'm not sure this is the book you're looking for though.

In Diving Women, the heroine's father keeps track of the previous tenants' ghosts; I think the house was in D.C. But that's not a y/a book and the ghosts aren't central.