Das Kleine Gespenst -- Original German Text
Although creepy stories with dangerous and vengeful spirits have never been all that much to my reading tastes (and in fact often tend to rather frighten me), Otfried Preußler's 1966 Das kleine Gespenst (The Little Ghost in its English translation by the late Anthea Bell) is for all intents and purposes not at all the former, not in any manner morbid or gruesome but simply a fun and engaging tale of a diminutive and lovable castle ghost who gets a bit more than what it bargained and actually had secretly wished for (and I am using the neutral pronoun it here as in the story, as in Das kleine Gespenst, Preußler actually never does point out whether his little ghost is a male or a female entity) when inadvertently nighttime kind of becomes daytime (clock wise) for the little ghost and it starts haunting the town of Eulenberg during the day and no longer at night (being rendered due to sunlight from a white ghost into a black hued spirit, disrupting Eulenberg's historical reenactment pageant of the town being attacked by the Swedes during the Thirty Years' War because the little ghost naturally assumes that the Swedes have in fact legitimately returned to fire their cannons and besiege the town, and indeed creating much havoc and mayhem for all until the town hall clock is fixed and the little ghost is finally able to return to its castle and a nighttime and ghostly white existence).
One of my favourite stories from my childhood, from before we immigrated to Canada in 1976 is Das kleine Gespenst and also a story that for me has certainly also stood the test of time so to speak, for when I reread Das kleine Gespenst early this morning, not only was my reading experience a nostalgic delight, I in fact have enjoyed it as just as much as I did as an eight year old (when I read Das kleine Gespenst in grade two, the first time for school, and then repeatedly for my own pleasure and enjoyment).
Now the only small caveat that I do (but indeed rather grudgingly at that) leave is that yes, within the storyline of Das kleine Gespenst, the little ghost is rendered from its nighttime white colouring into black by the sun's rays (and very much unhappy about this), and while I personally do not at all consider this a scenario with possible ethnic or racial implications, I know that there are indeed some readers and reviewers who unfortunately tend to find this aspect of Das kleine Gespenst as not all that politically correct. But yes indeed, even though I for one do not in fact consider the little ghost's frustration as a black spirit haunting Eulenberg in the daytime instead of a white spirit of the night problematic or in any manner racially charged, I still feel as though I should at least mention this in case others might have a different attitude and would feel offended (even though I really do NOT AT ALL think that there is anything to be offended by in Das kleine Gespenst and that any ethnicity based issues with the ghost turning from white to black are in my opinion rather overly and annoyingly exaggerated and therefore also making a huge and silly mountain out of the proverbial molehill).