Mary Downing Hahn (born December 9, 1937) is a prolific American author, known primarily for her safely spooky ghost novels for children. Her 1986 ghost story Wait Till Helen Comes became her Breakthrough Hit, and she's reliably published a new work every year since. Less well-known are her historical works, which often feature a modern-day child transported to the past to witness an historical event or right a long-ago wrong.
Most of her ghost stories are very kid-friendly in the sense that they never feature graphic violence, and the supernatural menace is always wrapped up by the final page with wrongs righted, understandings reached, and the ghost moving permanently to a peaceful repose. However, some of her themes are pretty heavy for young readers and include death, child endangerment, suicide (usually in the form of a wicked ghost forcing people to harm themselves), and overall supernatural themes, as well as addressing serious real-world issues like mental illness or the loss of a parent. Because of this, her books have been frequently challenged or banned from school libraries over the years.
Bibliography:
- The Sara Summer (1979)
- Time of the Witch (1982)
- Daphne's Book (1983)
- The Jellyfish Season (1985)
- Wait Till Helen Comes (1986)
- Following the Mystery Man (1988)
- Tallahassee Higgins (1988)
- December Stillness (1988)
- The Doll in the Garden (1989)
- The Dead Man in Indian Creek (1990)
- The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster (1991)
- Stepping on the Cracks (1991)
- The Wind Blows Backward (1993)
- Don't Give Up the Ghost (1993, contributor)
- Time for Andrew (1994)
- Look for Me by Moonlight (1995)
- The Gentleman Outlaw and Me—Eli (1996)
- Following My Own Footsteps (1996)
- As Ever, Gordy (1998)
- Anna All Year Round (1999)
- Promises to the Dead (2000)
- Anna on the Farm (2001)
- Hear the Wind Blow (2003)
- The Old Willis Place (2004)
- Janey and the Famous Author (2005)
- Witch Catcher (2006)
- Deep and Dark and Dangerous (2007)
- All the Lovely Bad Ones (2008)
- Closed for the Season (2009)
- The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall (2010)
- Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls (2012)
- Where I Belong (2014)
- Took (2015)
- One for Sorrow (2017)
- The Girl In The Locked Room (2018)
- Guest: A Changeling Tale (2019)
The works of Mary Downing Hahn provide examples of:
- Accidental Murder: The origin of many a ghost—possibly because it allows the "murderer" to remain sympathetic and ultimately forgivable.
- Arguably the most convoluted example is The Old Willis Place, in which two trespassing children are locked in a cellar as punishment by an old woman who only intended to keep them there until their parents returned a few hours later. Unfortunately, the woman suffered a stroke later the same day and was taken unconscious to the hospital, leaving the children to starve to death. Upon returning home to find their bodies, the woman chooses to close off the cellar and tell no one what occurred.
- In Deep and Dark and Dangerous, the ghost herself eventually concedes that what she believed to be her own murder was a tragic accident.
- Similarly, many of the ghosts do not understand that their actions are fatal and seem confused about why their victims keep "leaving" them.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Even the ghost children she had tortured in life feal bad for Ms. Ava when the Devil takes her away presumably to Hell except for one who thinks she got what she deserved.
- Bookworm: In between the spooky adventuring, many of Hahn's main characters like to take refuge in a good book. The title is helpfully included so the reader can look it up if they're so inclined.
- Creepy Child: You can generally count on there being at least two, one living and one dead.
- Creepy Doll: Since many of the main protagonists—including the ghosts—are little girls, one of the most common links between the living and the dead is a doll.
- A memorable example is in Deep and Dark and Dangerous, in which the doll is doubly creepy: it's covered in mildew and rot from being stuck at the bottom of a lake for thirty years, and incidentally is a copy of Edith from The Lonely Doll books, who is regarded by many to be a little unsettling all by herself.
- Anna Maria, the titular doll of The Doll in the Garden, ends up playing a minor role in the story itself, but the few descriptions are eerie, both in her appearance (she's an antique china doll with spiderweb cracks in her face and teeth) and in the way she's discovered (buried in a doll-sized coffin with her name on it).
- Dead to Begin With:
- The Reveal in The Old Willis Place.
- Likewise in Deep and Dark and Dangerous when we learn that the apparently living Sissy is in fact the long-dead Teresa.
- Death of a Child: Many of the novels feature the loss of a child, but there's usually an underlying fear that plays an equally prominent role: the death of a spouse, mental illness, fear of being unable to provide for one's children, how one's own grief or guilt impacts one's ability to parent, and so on.
- Dragged Off to Hell: In All the Lovely Bad Ones, the devil appears to take Ms. Ava away after she refuses the ghost children's forgiveness.
- Due to the Dead: Often all the ghosts want is a proper burial, for their lost bodies to be discovered, or for the real circumstances surrounding their deaths to be revealed.
- Exactly Exty Years Ago: It's amazing how often the main characters stumble onto an event that happened exactly thirty, fifty, or 100 years prior.
- Forgiveness: A major theme in almost every book, forgiveness is often given near-supernatural powers:
- In Wait Til Helen Comes, Heather witnesses Helen's ghostly parents forgive her for their deaths, which gives her hope that her father will forgive her for accidentally starting the fire that killed her mother. This forgiveness and letting go of guilt heals the family.
- In The Doll in the Garden, the ghost's sole reason for existing is to forgive her childhood friend for a long-ago misunderstanding. This allows the now-adult friend to let go of her bitterness and become a kinder person.
- In The Old Willis Place, both the children and Miss Lilian realize that holding on to grudges is what has trapped them on the Willis property. Forgiving one another allows them all to move on to the afterlife.
- In Deep and Dark and Dangerous, Sissy's forgiveness allows Dulcie and Claire to mend a thirty-year estrangement caused by their guilt in their role in Sissy's death.
- Zigzagged in All The Lovely Bad Ones. The ghosts of the Big Bad's victims are more than willing to forgive her if it means they'll all be allowed to rest, but the Big Bad refuses to repent. She's literally dragged down to Hell by a being implied to be the Devil himself. In a kid's book!
- Hazardous Water: If there's a body of water in a Hahn book, it's almost certain that someone's drowned in it. Happens in multiple books, possibly because these books are meant for children and drowning is a conveniently bloodless death.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
- Sissy in Deep and Dark and Dangerous starts off bratty and turns out to be a tiny sadist who revels in the misery and terror she causes others. Not to mention that she's killed before and will kill again if she's disobeyed.
- Helen in Wait Til Helen Comes is eerily mature, cold, and calculating for a mere seven-year-old—and this is aside from the fact that she kills children. Even her speech patterns are chillingly adult. It's unclear if this is the authority that comes from 100+ years of existence or just her baseline personality.
- Unexpectedly Real Magic: Happens quite frequently, and with some overlap into Not-So-Imaginary Friend, as often the very real ghost is mistaken for a child's imagination right up to the point where it can no longer be denied. In one of the more Played Straight examples, in All the Lovely Bad Ones, two siblings prank the guests at their grandmother's resort by faking ghostly manifestations, only to discover that the real ghosts aren't happy with someone pretending to be them.
- Unfinished Business: Frequently the reason the ghost keeps hanging around, but usually with a small twist: while it may seem as if the ghost wants to finish a particular piece of personal business—a proper burial, a lost item they loved in life—it's usually revealed that their true Unfinished Business is to benefit someone they left behind.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Make no mistake: for all the Soft and Friendly haunting going on around here, most of Hahn's ghosts are powerful and angry. Some have a list of victims going back decades, some can manipulate time itself, some can assume human bodies.
- Write What You Know: Hahn is a lifelong resident of Maryland and many of her works are set there.
