School Spirit

Sissy just wanted to get through 8th grade without anyone noticing her.

That plan went spectacularly off the rails at Gabriel's Halloween party, when her grandmother's antique hairpin let her see the poltergeists trashing the place — she responded by taking a meat tenderizer to a century-old (and haunted!) cigar box. Now everyone at Calderon Middle School knows her name, and not in a good way.

So she hid the hairpin away, planning to survive the rest of the school year by keeping her head down and staying close to her new friends.

But when you can open a door to the spirit world, ghosts will find you.

With her two best friends — French horn-toting Marlow and darkly philosophical Albany — and unexpected backup from Gabriel, Sissy continues her adventures into the strange and spooky world of the paranormal in School Spirit.

Something is lurking under the football bleachers, and only Sissy can uncover its forgotten secret!

Funny, fast-paced, and genuinely spooky, School Spirit is the second book in Thomas Kingsley Troupe's Hair-Raiser series — perfect for middle grade readers who like their ghost stories with a side of laugh-out-loud humor.

Readers will love School Spirit if they enjoy:

•R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series
•Ghost Squad by Claribel Ortega
•Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
•The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs

Books in the Hair-Raiser series:

•Book 1: Death of the Party
•Book 2: School Spirit
•Book 3: Christmas Ghast (coming fall of '26)