Wait Till Helen Comes is written from the point of view of 12-year-old Molly, who is annoyed with her new younger step-sister.
"Beware of Helen...
Heather is such a whiny little brat. Always getting Michael and me into trouble. But since our mother married her father, we're stuck with her ... our "poor stepsister" who lost her real mother in a mysterious fire.
But now something terrible has happened. Heather has found a new friend, out in the graveyard behind our home—a girl named Helen who died with her family in a mysterious fire over a hundred years ago. Now her ghost returns to lure children into the pond ... to drown! I don't want to believe in ghosts, but I've followed Heather into the graveyard and watch her talk to Helen. And I'm terrified. Not for myself, but for Heather..." (Goodreads summary). 
 The book addresses themes such as adapting to blended families, severe guilt, communication, fear of abandonment, and forgiveness. Each class we will read aloud together 1-2 chapters (around 20 pages) and discuss the events, characters, themes, all while building a vocabulary list of new words, using context clues to help us understand them. Here is the tentative schedule we will follow:
Week 1: ch 1-2 + ch 3-4
Week 2: ch 5-6 + ch 7
Week 3 ch 8 + ch 9
Week 4 ch 10-11 + ch 12-13
Week 5 ch 14-15 + end of book discussion/response

We can reduce it to four weeks or extend it to six weeks, depending on the speed and confidence of the students' reading, but we share the reading together. If the class schedule (day/times) don't meet your family schedule well, please send me a note and request a certain schedule. I will do my best to accommodate requests.