Dying to Meet You by Kate Klise

I.B. Grumply is an old, grouchy author who hasn't written a book in his series Ghost Tamer in over twenty-years.  When he decides to rent a house for the summer to help him overcome his writers block he ends up renting more than a house.  To his surprise, he is now responsible for an eleven-year-old boy and his cat.  Did I mention Olive the ghost?  Olive is haunting the mansion that Grumply is renting.  Through letters written by Grumply, Olive, and Seymour a relationship starts to form.  Will Grumply believe in ghosts? 
This book is a 2012 Nutmeg Book Award Intermediate Nominee.  This book is easy to read, entertaining, and funny. 

Reading Level: 
     Lexile: 730
   
Genre/Theme:
     Comedy and Humor
     Mystery and Suspense
     Series
    
Subject:
     Language Arts

Teaching Ideas for a 3rd Grade Class:
     Web Resources: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY20rDrFDfo is a great video to watch as an initation.  Kate Klise discusses the essentials needed to write a good story and gives viewers an inside look at how she got the idea to write Dying to Meet You.
                        
http://jeopardylabs.com/play/enter-title42366 offers students an opportunity to test their knowledge after they have finished reading the book.  By choosing "A Creepy Address" students can answer questions "Jeopardy" style.

Suggested Delivery:  Read aloud

Before Reading Activities:
     Vocabulary to introduce:  cupola, compilers, ruminations, hallucinations, mayhem, macabre, paranormal, perilous
Introduce the term epistolary novel.  This as a novel of letters.  Ask students what are the benefits of reading an epistolary novel?  (The reader is able to see many different view points depending on who has written the letter).  Ask students if we were to write an epistolary novel today, what are some forms of writing that we could use?  (Include all forms of social networking such as emails, text messages, tweets and blogs).  Show students one of the letters on page 10 and 11.  Ask them who wrote the letter?  Explain the term letterhead.  A business or company will have their business name on letterhead.  The person who wrote the letter will sign it.  Anita Sale wrote the letter and works for the company Proper Properties. 
Ask students what it mean to have "writers block"?  Ask them if they ever suffered from writers block?  It may make you feel "Grumply" or grumpy.  Introduce the characters by viewing the first few pages of the  book.  Have students notice the characters names and ask them to predict if their names will match their personalities.  Write students predictions.  

During Reading Activities: 
Have students identify a business letter and a friendly letter.  Ask students if they notice the characters names matching their personalities.  Refer back to predictions made prior to reading.  What do you think the author meant by naming the real estate agent Anita Sale?  (I need a sale).  The publisher Paige Turner?  The 11-year-old boy Seymour Hope? (See more hope). 

After Reading Activites:
Working in Small Groups, have students create their own newspaper articles by creating a new character, adding a conflict and details.  Students can use the following interactive to create their newspaper articles:  http://interactives.mped.org/view_interactive.aspx?id=110&title=:    Have students try to give their new characer a unique name.

Klise, K. (2009). Dying to meet you.  Boston: Harcourt.