Graphic Novel Review: Free Piano (Not Haunted) by Whitney Gardner

Posted on September 9, 2025 at 6:20 am by Gene Ambaum

Free Piano (Not Haunted) by Whitney Gardner. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 9781665938136. 252pp. The end of the book includes notes on the Prophet-5 keyboard, a Hall of Fame, and some early sketches.

Margot likes making songs and playing her ukulele. Her friends Seven and Sebastian love to smash junk and make videos while doing it, which they post online. They find a keyboard with the titular note — a Prophet-5 keyboard (circa 1979). The boys want to smash it, but Margot takes it home.

Her dad is a flaky musician who decides to head to Los Angeles to pursue his music career because he has nearly 10k followers online. In doing so, he disappoints Margot; he had said he’d teach her to play the Prophet, but leaves her to find online tutorials. Margot’s mom has to pick up the pieces. Margot is mad at both her mom and father when the ghost of 1980s pop star Vision appears. This is not quite a freak-out moment. Vision predates the whole internet / followers thing, and wants to know the real reason Margot wants to write music. It’s not much of a spoiler to say they start working on a song together, and that there is another, less friendly specter that eventually needs to be dealt with.

This is another fun, unpredictable graphic novel by Gardner (Fake Blood); I’m a huge fan, and I’ll read whatever she writes from now on.