Never Say Boo to a Ghost and Other Haunting Rhymes

by John Foster, Korky Paul (Illustrator)

Collects more than sixty poems, riddles, and jokes about ghosts, ghouls, and monsters

Genres: Poetry, Horror, Halloween, Childrens

96 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1991

About the author

John Foster taught English for twenty years before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of over 100 books for classroom use including the best-selling PSHE and Citizenship course Your Life. He is also a highly regarded children's poet, anthologist and poetry performer.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Laurel]

2.5 ⭐️ Some poems didn't make sense to my children. Some were odd even for me.

[Anita]

April is National Poetry Month!

CC Standards for poetry can be easy to work into the 7th/8th grade English Language Arts curriculum.

It's useful to have daily, weekly or bi-weekly poetry reading and analysis with high-interest -- versus literary -- poems. For this, I found the poems collected in the various books edited by John Foster and Korky Paul generated substantial student enthusiasm.

Foster and Paul have collected poems your students will want to read. The artwork is divine, and the poems lend themselves to daily reading and basic poetry analysis. You'll find the likes of Shakespeare (Macbeth's Witches' Chant) and other classics sprinkled in these volumes, as well.

I bought several copies of each collection, and made them available to table groups. Students worked in groups or pairs to choose and analyze a poem a day using the Poetry Analysis Bellwork Slips.

Or, conversely, you can assign specific poems to analyze. Students used the Trifold Poetry Pamphlets to help identify figurative language devices, types of poety and rhyme schemes.

The sheer number of books in this poetry collection also meant I could use a different book with each table group, ensuring students collaborated with their table peers.

Visit my blog for the free teaching resources / handouts mentioned in this review: http://amb.strikingly.com/blog/teachi...

[Tricia Thompson]

cute book

[Samantha Osborne]

Reminds me of tales for the midnight hour series and scary stories to tell in the dark

[Jesse Boucher]

This book introduces lots of highly amusing spooky poems to an audience who may think poetry is just boring! It is aimed more at KS2 as the language is not particularly accessible but would be suitable for a Halloween theme perhaps. Some of the poems are a little bit strange and may not bit be exactly how many children view traditional poetry. But nevertheless I enjoyed it. Could be used for a KS2 class to introduce different styles of poetry and also to get children to read outside their comfort zone of rhyming poetry.

[Nurture Waratah]

This book may have been written for kids, but it is just as enjoyable for adults. Some of the poems are spooky, some are funny and some are just plain silly, but all of them are fun to read. Some of my favourites are: The Ghoul by Charles Thomson; Locking Up by Ian Serraillier; and The Cupboard on the Landing by John Coldwell.

[Eden Silverfox]

This is a book of spooky and funny poetry. I enjoyed it. It included some poems by Jack Prelutsky, who writes great poetry for children.