This is such a well written story about grief, perfect for the intended audience. It handles it sensitively but realistically, and would be a great option for people wanting to comfort a child in a similar situation. I also loved how much we got to learn about Singaporean culture!

A ghost story that is set in Singapore. The setting was beautifully described. I was invested in both the characters and the storyline. The spooky elements are done very well. Great for middle grade readers

The Hungry Ghost by H.S. Norup is a beautiful and tender exploration of legacy, grief, and belonging as seen through the eyes of Freja, a young girl who moves to Singapore from Denmark to stay with her dad and his young family. Her mixed feelings about the move, as well as the longing to be back with her mom, coincide with the Hungry Ghost festival, which introduces Ling, a girl her age who appears to be a ghost. Throughout the book, Freja faces various challenges and slowly comes to terms with confronting her insecurities, fears, and painful memories.

This book would be a great introduction for young readers to Singaporean culture, or the way that it differs from the culture Freja is accustomed to in Denmark. It covers topics such as intersectionality and colonialism in an age-appropriate way, through the eyes of a compassionate, curious protagonist. Due to the nature of some of the topics, this book would be best suited for children and young teens ages 12 and up.

This book has stayed with me in the weeks since I read it and I would be revisiting it in the future.

A captivating set in Sinagpore. Enjoyed the storyline and learning how different customs and traditions add to the cultural landscape of the country. The author wrote the supernatural and ghostly scences well; they might be spooky for some of the younger readers.

The concept of hungry ghosts isn't one I knew much about so this as a compelling topic for me. I like how this book handles the introduction to the view of spirits and how even a "nice" spirit can be harmful. That being said, this book may be a bit too slow-paced and meandering, the spirit elements to confusing, for many readers.

So glad I saved this one for the spooky season, it was just what I needed. A fun, captivating ghost story set in Singapore (made me think of Black Water Sister but for a younger audience, with Asian mythos and setting).

Freja moves to Singapore to live with her dad and stepmom for summer, leaving behind her mother to get hospital care. While in Singapore, she discovers it is the month of the Hungry Ghost festival, and she just so happens to meet a ghost named Ling. As Freja delves deeper into Ling's past and how it could possibly connect to her own, we get a stunning tour of Singapore and some of the traditions they have.

It really captured the excitement and life of Singapore, with brilliant setting descriptions and animated main characters. There was plenty of atmosphere and tension - especially around Freja and her family. Dealing with family in hospital is such a sensitive topic, and I really felt like Norup handled it with care and compassion. It was so easy to empathise with Freja and her family, and I really enjoyed reading her story.

As Freja tries to settle into her new life, a mysterious girl in a white dress starts to appear to her, seeming to beckon her on. Following this figure, Freja begins to unravel an old family mystery - one that must be solved before the month is over, to allow both girls to be freed from secrets long-buried.

This book was so interesting. I enjoyed it despite some of the triggers. It's surprisingly creepy at times

This was a completely brilliant read. I would recommend this to every young reader. The fantasy elements, the depth of the atmosphere, the vibe of this book was amazing.

The only thing worse than being transplanted halfway across the world to a place you don't want to be? Discovering that place is, in fact, haunted.

This was a strange, special little tale. Right off the bat I was sucked into Norup's voicey, lyrical writing, as we follow a Danish girl (Freja) who arrives in Singapore during the Festival of the Hungry Ghost. The sense of wonder and displacement was immediately apparent, and I loved the combination of evocative real-world details with the threads of supernatural. Even though this is a "ghost story," it was more mysterious than spooky, but the pace kept moving nevertheless.

I think my biggest dislike was the final act, which felt too frenetic and somehow convenient? (The question mark is because I'm not certain WHY it didn't sit right with me, only that it didn't.) But overall, a solid MG adventure that will have me looking for more HS Norup books in the future.

I was keen to read The Hungry Ghost as part of our 'Read Around the World' challenge at school and I am glad I did. I really enjoyed this story and found it fascinating to learn about the Hungry Ghost Festival, which I ended up researching lots more about; without reading this book, I would never have heard of it! I think my class will really enjoy the mystery and ghostly elements of The Hungry Ghost and I would recommend it for 9+ readers.

I picked this book as my pre- Halloween 2021 book. There are sensitive subjects so this is good to know before giving it to kids. I liked the mystery, paranormal and cultural aspects. The writing was gripping. Overall, it's different to any other book I have.

Thanks to H.S. Norup and publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

4 stars

A lovely middle grade novel with mature themes of grief and family. A ghost story interwoven with Singaporean tradition and 20th Century history elevates the narrative. What does it mean to be remembered? What happens when memory is painful? How does a young person deal with grief when their own parents fell apart? I highly recommend this book.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I am not sure why it has taken me so long to venture into children’s/middle-grade books, but I am finding some really great reads. I initially requested it because of the "Denmark" angle, as that is where I have called home for the past 25 years. And I am so glad I did (request it) because this was just such a wonderful read. Set in Singapore during the Hungry Ghosts Festival, Freja arrives to spend a year with her dad and his new family. Before long, a mysterious girl appears in their garden, and Freja must solve the mystery of the girl's background before the end of the festival.

Part advantage, part ghost story, part learning to embrace change and acknowledge pain. And full of friendship, love, and feels. I honestly can't recommend this one enough. 👍🏻👍🏻

**ARC Via NetGalley**

The main chunk of the story is about ghosts, befriending them, how they work in this culture, and finding out more about the person they were in life. Ignorance about different cultures is so much more excusable in a person that young, and Freja does not mind learning. She comes with a preset idea of how the world runs, telling a boy that no, it's not the seventh month, we already have august, thank you very much, and is rebuked, being told that there is more than one calender on this planet.
She learns, and the reader joins her, being entertaines all the while.

Freja moves to Singapore to live with her dad and stepmom for some time while her mom gets better. The seventh month is the month of the Hungry Ghost, and this is when she comes to meet Ling, a young girl lost, with no recollection of who she is other than some small flashbacks of someone looking like Freja’s father. Freja tries to help her remember, trying to see the connection between the two. But Ling might not be the only one needing remembering.

This was such a beautifully vivid story! I’ve never been to Singapore but this makes it seem something short of magical. It’s beautifully described and it felt like I was there with Freja.

I loved getting to know Freja and adventuring with her into the wild while helping Ling. I loved how the story developed and how much they did to make Ling remember. Freja is an amazing researcher and I love how she does everything with a big heart. She is cautious and intelligent but with no regard for trouble. Nothing can stop her from helping her new friend! I loved their friendship. As well as the new friends Freja makes at school that turn out to be really great.

But above all I loved Freja’s family and how much Clementine tried to make her a part of the family and wanting to get her involved. It was difficult for Freja in the beginning, like everything is, but I loved how much more of a family they came to be by the end.

This is a stunning book full of vivid descriptions that got me to learn more of Singapore and their customs and beliefs. It totally touched my heart and even made me cry a tiny bit. It’s beautiful and I can’t wait to get my hands on this book!

The Hungry Ghost by H.S Norup is a children’s fiction novel set in Singapore and the plot revolves around Freja- a young girl who struggles to get along with her father’s family and settle in Singapore. Her stay gets stranger when she keeps encountering a little girl in a white dress. I was not able to finish the whole book yet, I loved what I was able to read because of plot and cultural setting and background.

The plot is interesting because of its mix of genre characteristics. First, it is children’s fiction, so it focuses on a young girl. Her story is relatable and something the reader can empathize with because of her struggle to fit in with her step mother and her half-brothers and also in a different country. Also, as children’s fiction, the story sets a great example of a curious, adventurous, and brave little girl, which is very inspiring for younger readers. Second, the adventure traits of this story also creates a lot of excitement because of Freja’s wandering in the jungle and chasing the girl in the white dress. This adventurous aspect is enhanced with the festival of ghosts, which adds a magical realist element by alluding to existence of ghosts and heightening the tension and mystery of the story. Therefore, these genre elements make this story an exciting and fun read.

The incorporation of certain cultural elements creates a unique and thrilling fictional narrative. The festival of the hungry ghost was very interesting to read about, especially what the people in Singapore do to ward off these ghosts. It not only gives background information of the Singapore setting, but it also contributes to the adventurous narrative. Furthermore, it is not an integrated in a way to create a horror story, but to create a balanced amount of spooky and adventure, which is fun to read. The inclusion of jungle is not to exoticize Singapore, but to also give an insight into its ecology that is also threatened by urbanization, which is emphasized by the revival by cultural traditions. The jungle is very enigmatized that contributes to the development of the plot and forms a very mysterious and exhilarating setting to read about. For these reasons, Singapore as a setting enhances the thrilling aspect of this story and gives an insight into the cultural background of the country.

From an adventurous little girl to ghost traditions to tropical jungles, The Hungry Ghost by H.S Norup is a very enjoyable book to read.

With thanks to Netgalley, H.S. Norup and Steerford press for allowing me to review this book.

The Hungry ghost is part ghost story and part myths/legends and in all a very good book. I enjoyed the Chinese folklore and the myths. The writing style was good.

The hungry ghost, I'm sure will be enjoyed by children and adults alike.

I picked this because it looked interesting, and I saw a review by another blogger who talked about its contents. I have not lived in Singapore (though I have visited), but I did spend five years in Hong Kong. I watched my niece attend school for two of those years. All of this background information is because I felt like the narrative provided quite an accurate representation of ex-pat life, especially for an almost teenager.
Freja has been sent to live with her father, a fact she is not happy about. Not because she has any issues with her father; in fact, she spends holidays living in the wild with him frequently. Now, she has to share him with his new family, whom she feels would be disloyal to like.
Once Freja arrives in a city/country with completely different weather than she is used to, she finds a version of her father she has never encountered before. As she struggles with her own emotions, she sees a ghost. It is that time of the year when the locals anticipate communication with those who have departed. Against all advice, she follows this ghost and delves into what she wants. She has some help on and off but largely takes all the burden of investigating upon herself.
During the day, real-life and its complications interfere, but Freja is a determined girl. There are many threads of mysteries that are revealed by the end. I would not recommend this to a very young audience, even if they are fond of horror(ish) narratives. There are issues tackled here, the gravity of which would be more apparent to a slightly older audience.
I felt like some plotlines could have been trimmed (the adventure in the forest) etc., since it felt like my attention was being pulled into too many emotional situations before any were resolved. Otherwise, it was an entertaining book with its own heartfelt moments.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

My thanks to Pushkin Press/Steerforth Press and NetGalley for a review copy of this book.

‘Loss and grief is part of life…we cannot forget the dead’

The Hungry Ghost is a children’s/middle-grade story set in Singapore, and is a story of adventure and ghosts, of family and relationships, of remembering and forgetting, of the past and the present—a story which was absorbing throughout and which turned out to be much deeper than I’d expected.

In the book we met Freja, a young girl, who arrives in Singapore to live with her dad, step-mom Clementine, and half-brothers—twins, Billie and Eddie—while her mum undergoes treatment back in Denmark. While Clementine and Freja’s dad try to make everything comfortable for her, she understandably resists, not wanting to end-up ‘liking’ Clementine. The fact that the family are living in much better circumstances than she does with her mum (larger house, live-in domestic-help, a woman from the Philippines named Maya, and buy her many of the things she’s been asking for at home) somehow makes her more reluctant.

On her very first evening there, Freja notices a mysterious girl in a white dress, with long black hair trying to speak to her father out in the garden. Curious, she follows the girl when she notices her again the next day, ending up in a Chinese Cemetery, Bukit Brown. Freja soon finds that the time she has arrived in Singapore is that of the Hungry Ghost festival when offerings are made to ancestors and ghosts and spirits roam free. The girl in white, who she finds out is called Ling, has a family mystery of her own which Freya must help solve, and which must be done by the end of the month. But solving this mystery is no easy task and takes Freja to places she’d have hardly even imagined existed.

Meanwhile, alongside Freja starts at her new school and meets people who come from very mixed and different backgrounds. Families and friends for them too come in different moulds—not always conventional. Despite all the warmth and friendliness around, Freja finds it difficult to adapt to the family and school, and we sense that there is something that is worrying her for she is always preparing for danger, trouble, survival! But what could that be?

This was a really engrossing read right from the start and had me invested both in the storyline and characters (though I must say I didn’t entirely take to Freja, even though I realised there’d be an explanation for why she was as she was). But I definitely wanted to find out more about Ling and also Freja’s own story, and both girls’ stories did turn out interesting, but a little heart-breaking as well.

The setting in terms of both the place—Singapore—and its cultural elements—including folklore and the background of the Hungry Ghost festival are excellently incorporated in the story, and one learns about ghosts (including the vampire ghost or Pontianak) and offerings, mythical creatures like dragons, tigers and turtles, and also legendary figures like the Monkey King/Sun Wukong. Other cultural elements like Feng Shui which not only plays a role in day to day life but is also the basis for the city-state’s design are also woven into the story. Also, the blend of cultures that is Singapore stands out really well—as we meet people from different heritages and cultures represented in the different schoolmates Freja meets and befriends, including a neighbour’s grandson, Jason (There is also the food from different cultures—chicken rice to roti pratha and dosa—which are part of everyday life, and nature—monkeys, monitor lizards, and banyan trees among them). Freja is of course ignorant of most of these cultural elements (including how elders are addressed) and must find out as the story goes on.

The spooky, eerie elements of the story are also done very well, and one definitely feels a chill or a creepy vibe when reading the book, especially when one enters the realm of the ghosts (and seeing things that Freja doesn’t seem to even when they seem obvious).

But beyond the actual adventure, the mystery that Freja has to solve, and the ghostly elements, this is also a story about family and relationships. Freja is caught between a family where she feels like an outsider, and whom she feels reluctant to accept even when she wants to, and the love she feels for her mother back home. With the new friends she makes at school, though she likes them, she has to get over barriers of her own making before she can truly accept them as part of her life. The meeting with Ling and helping her with her mystery ends up helping her with her own issues as well. These elements brought a complexity to the story. I also thought that Freja ‘s responses in these situations, and her lashing out in a way, pushing everything and everyone away was done well and believably even though I didn’t much like her reactions.

This was a great read in terms of the story, setting and themes, and one that can also be enjoyed by adults (for the intended audience, I thought may be some of the themes might be a little dark).

A multicultural tale of fun, mystery and adventure, with a little bit of a supernatural chill, for emotionally mature middle grade readers.

Twelve year old Freja has arrived in Singapore to spend some time living with her English dad's new family, while her Danish mum recovers from some health issues. It is the month of the hungry ghost, but Freja doesn't know much about Chinese culture and customs yet, so she has no hesitation in exploring the nearby Bukit Brown Cemetery which she has mistaken for an urban forest, and she doesn't initially realise she's being drawn into a supernatural mystery by her new ethereal friend. Freja's very much a can-do kind of kid, and is very quick to learn and soak up the culture of her new environment. Enlisting help from kids, ghosts and mythical beings, she will do whatever it takes to solve the mystery for her new friend.

What I loved most about this story was how all the kids were just so accepting of diversity, and also the way it transported me to contemporary Singapore. Freja is a confident, fairly brash young woman, with life skills beyond her years. I didn't always like the way she behaved towards her stepmother and stepbrothers, but have to admit her heart was in the right place.

Recommended for adventurous spirits, young and old! (See what I did there?)