Slipping — Cathleen Davitt Bell

Michael Kimmel is an average eighth grader who's too short to be good at basketball and too unmotivated to care about school. When the grandfather he barely knows suddenly dies, Michael can't understand why his dad seems so detached. But when the ghost of his grandfather contacts Michael and begins to show him scenes from the past, Michael suspects it's up to him to right the wrongs between his father and grandfather -- before he himself becomes trapped in the river of the dead.