Big new titles perfect for the littles.
Pick up a newspaper lately? There’s nothing — truly nothing — scarier than the real world right now. But Halloween approaches, and your kids will be expecting a few spooky stories of their own. With that in mind, here are three excellent titles to explore. While the first is geared to the very youngest trick-or-treaters, the others offer genuinely eerie moments best savored by school-age and older readers.
The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt by Riel Nason; illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler (Tundra Books). “Once there was a little ghost who was a quilt. He didn’t know why he was a quilt. His mom and dad and all his friends were sheets.” True, the tiny specter can’t billow and float on a breeze like the others, but couldn’t his being softer, fluffier, and warmer than the rest of the spirits turn out to be a good thing? Of course it could!
The Haunted Lake by P.J. Lynch (Candlewick). The old village of Spetzia was flooded to make a reservoir for a larger town down the mountain. Only the tip of its clock tower remains visible above the water. “Stay away,” go the warnings. “There are ghosts in that lake. The bell in the tower rings whenever another poor soul is going to join them down below.” Young Ellen isn’t afraid of the legend until Jacob, the man she intends to marry, goes fishing one dark night and slips silently beneath the waves…
Ghostology: A True Revelation of Spirits, Ghouls, and Hauntings by Lucinda Curtle; illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert and Garry Walton (Candlewick). From Anne Boleyn’s spirit searching endlessly for its missing head, to chain-rattling and door-slamming tricksters seeking to make their victims shudder with fear, this compendium — chockful of intricate illustrations, flaps to lift, marginalia, and facsimile documents to peruse — offers an immersive, enthralling exploration of things that go bump in the night.
