October 2020 -- Ghosts, Monsters and the Like

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Really am enjoying rereading both The Ghost Road and The Swallow: A Ghost Story. Love the author’s sense of time and place and that in both tales there is enough eeriness without the storylines becoming too frightening (at least in my opinion) for middle grade readers.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

I have a lot of ghostly tales on the go right now and am liking them well enough but not really finding the time to be reading in-depth. Hope to get Tom's Midnight Garden, Beholding Bee, The Children of Green Knowe and The Beasts of Clawstone Castle done by the end of the month.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

I would also like to recommend one of my favourites of the Rhea Wilmshurst collections of L.M. Montgomery short story anthologies, Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side. I find this collection perfect for Halloween, and yes, some of the stories are decidedly eerie (but none of them is what I would personally call nightmare inducing). And although the collection is not middle grade per se, I would say that most of the stories are in my opinion suitable for older MG readers.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Manybooks wrote: "So yes, I actually quite enjoyed The Goblin Squad. It is perhaps a bit basic and on the surface but in my opinion, it works really well and is interesting, fun and engaging for youn..."

So I do want to reiterate that I do think The Goblin Squad is a really fun tale for younger MG readers, kind of like a junior Harry Potter like novel, and I do love the children can DO attitude portrayed and that by the end everyone is working together including the lazies and the bullies.

[QNPoohBear]

Manybooks wrote: "I would also like to recommend one of my favourites of the Rhea Wilmshurst collections of L.M. Montgomery short story anthologies, Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side. I fin..."

I loved that one when I was a teen. I was the ghost bride on the cover for Halloween one year. No one knew what I was supposed to be.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

QNPoohBear wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "I would also like to recommend one of my favourites of the Rhea Wilmshurst collections of L.M. Montgomery short story anthologies, [book:Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker S..."

I would have made the connection. I love the Girl at the Gate story.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

I was wondering if anyone would like to chime in with regard to some of the controversy that has plagued the late Otfried Preußler with regard to his MG novels Das kleine Gespenst (The Little Ghost) and Die kleine Hexe (The Little Witch).

In The Little Ghost, there are some individuals who have found the fact that the little ghost turns into an entirely black spirit (and is very unhappy about this ) when he starts haunting the castle during the day problematic and politically incorrect (something that I for one do find totally silly as the Little Ghost Story has nothing to do with ethnicity and the colour change is simply that at night, the ghost is white but when he starts haunting during daylight, he turns black).

And I also find it totally silly that because of a few complaints, ALL modern versions of The Little Witch no longer contain the carnival scenes of children dressing up as cannibals etc. because while this might be politically incorrect for today, in the late 50s and early 60s, when the Little Witch was published, this was not the case, and this is also a wonderful discussion vehicle. Also, I do find it infuriating that many analysts seem to think that The Little Witch is supposedly an allegory of Naziism, for the story of good witch versus more evil witches is a standard trope and NO ONE would consider this based on National Socialism if the story was not originally penned in German.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

So with Mary Downing Hahn, I do love that with the ghost stories I have read to date, there is not really a focus on horror but on pain, on friendship, on overcoming challenges, on righting wrongs. That is what I mostly got out of both The Doll in the Garden and The Old Willis Place. But yes, I did with The Girl in the Locked Room: A Ghost Story kind of expect the past to be really changed and when this only happened in the realm of fantasy, I was a bit personally disappointed.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

Manybooks wrote: "I was wondering if anyone would like to chime in with regard to some of the controversy that has plagued the late Otfried Preußler with regard to his MG novels Das kleine Gespenst ([..."

Not having read them, I can't say for sure, but if I were reading a book with a cannibal scene to my kids I'd skip that scene. Which isn't to say that both bowdlerization and censorship aren't bad. I hope the newer editions at least say "abridged" or "adapted" from the original....

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Cheryl wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "I was wondering if anyone would like to chime in with regard to some of the controversy that has plagued the late Otfried Preußler with regard to his MG novels [book:Das kleine Ge..."

No they do not say that. And the scenes are not really cannibals, but kids dressed up, not politically correct but common for the time in most of Europe. I just do not agree with this kind of censorship.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

:sigh: I agree with you.

[Harley]

I reread some of my favorite ghost stories.
Wait Till Helen Comes andThe Doll in the Garden: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn.
and, The Seer of Shadows by Avi.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

I know about the Hahn books, but I don't think I know that Avi book... I'll have to check it out, thanks!

[QNPoohBear]

Cheryl wrote: "I know about the Hahn books, but I don't think I know that Avi book... I'll have to check it out, thanks!"

It's not his best but it's not terrible either. Something Upstairs is his masterpiece. At least it's a local favorite because it takes place in the house where he lived at the time. I went on a Something Upstairs tour a few years ago. The book is horribly inaccurate but the MAIN thing - the slavery issue- is true and that's what matters. We were never, ever taught about that in school- not even high school, until grad school.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

QNPoohBear wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "I know about the Hahn books, but I don't think I know that Avi book... I'll have to check it out, thanks!"

It's not his best but it's not terrible either. [book:Something Upstairs|1..."

I remember asking my grade eight Social Studies instructor about teaching us about WWII and the Holocaust and being told I would have to wait until grade twelve. So it was somehow alright for my classmates to call me a Nazi from grade four onwards (from when my family arrived in Canada from Germany) but supposedly not appropriate for us to be taught about Nazi atrocities, about WWII etc. until our last year of high school.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

I very much enjoyed The Painting by Charis Cotter and realized that it fits both 'art' and 'ghosts' themes so am adding this post to both threads. My review:

Requested from paperbackswap because I very much enjoyed The Swallow: A Ghost Story. Will reread because the mystery is complex, even after I know 'the answer,' and the journey to that answer is at least as important as that destination (and I still am not sure who Mrs. Silver is.)

I love that it's about how paintings/art can reach out from the soul of the artist to that of the viewer/audience, even if they aren't necessarily interpreting the message/theme the same way. I also love the particular speculative fiction elements... it's not necessarily a ghost story, but if I say more I'll be spoiling it.

If you're interested, put it on your list to read, but then wait until you've forgotten the blurb, and read it without expectations.

[QNPoohBear]

Manybooks wrote: "I remember asking my grade eight Social Studies instructor about teaching us about WWII and the Holocaust and being told I would have to wait until grade twelve. "

Wow that's weird. I read Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl in 5th grade and Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. We had U.S. History that year too. It was local history they never taught us. New England has a long history of denying our ties to slavery and the slave trade. We're working on it now. Somehow, Avi found out about it and wrote a wonderful ghost story/time slip novel. If anyone reads it and loves it, I took pictures on the tour. I haven't heard anything about his house actually being haunted though. He said just his wife in her bathrobe standing in their bedroom caused people to think they were seeing ghosts.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

QNPoohBear wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "I remember asking my grade eight Social Studies instructor about teaching us about WWII and the Holocaust and being told I would have to wait until grade twelve. "

Wow that's wei..."

It turned out that there were a few parents (who had also donated money to the school) who did not want their kids learning about the Holocaust until grade twelve. The teachers did not want this but the management forced them.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

:speechless:

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Cheryl wrote: ":speechless:"

We were as well ...

[QNPoohBear]

I found some more I liked as a kid
Ghosts I Have Been
The Ghost Belonged to Me

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Beasts of Clawstone Castle

So yes, there is certainly much that is enjoyable and engaging with regard to Eva Ibbotson's The Beasts of Clawstone Castle (or at least with parts of the author's presented text). For while the general premise of a decrepit and crumbling castle in desperate need of some major TLC (and innovative ideas on how to attract visitors) might well be a bit repetitive (and something that often does seem to appear as a theme in children's literature), how Clawstone Castle is then actually turned into rather a major tourist attraction, this is delightfully and engagingly penned by Eva Ibbotson (since in my opinion many children do tend to enjoy and appreciate fun and not too overtly creepy ghost stories and having Madlyn, Rollo and of course also ghostly Cousin Howard hire a group of homeless spirits to spice up the atmosphere of Clawstone Castle to attract attention and a reputation of being one of the most haunted castles of Great Britain has certainly made the first half of The Beasts of Clawstone Castle a totally and absolutely fun and sweetly engaging reading experience, and indeed, I was originally also rather thinking of considering The Beasts of Clawstone Castle with a very solid and shining four star ranking).

However, as much as I have enjoyed reading about Madlyn, Rollo and company (and of course also about the hired ghosts and Claswstone Castle's special herd of white cattle), I equally and sadly have to say that the entire scenario of the mad scientist Dr. Manners, the abduction of the cattle, and yes, actually and in fact pretty much the whole second half of The Beasts of Clawstone Castle, I have found much too implausible and with too much stereotyping of the nasties, of the main villains (who are all, from Lord Trembellow and his daughter, to the mad scientist Dr. Manners one-sidedly nasty and totally flat to the extreme and as such also incredibly tedious for and to me as a reader and especially so as an adult, as an older reader). Combined with the fact that it also makes absolutely no logical sense that Madlyn's Cousin George would simply accept the verdict of the "fake" ministry veterinarians about his prized and precious herd of pure white cattle being diseased and needing to be euthanised (for in my opinion, any cattle owner or at least any reasonable cattle owner would both research the disease the cattle supposedly have and also immediately contact the ministry to make sure everything is comme il faut), for me, I really have not at all enjoyed the second half The Beasts of Clawstone Castle with its unreasonable assumptions and with its all too one-sided villains.

And truly, the only reason my ranking for The Beasts of Clawstone Castleis still three and not two stars is that for the intended audience, for middle grade readers from about the age of eight to eleven, the issues I have noticed as an adult might perhaps not be as problematic as they have been for me (although personally speaking, even as a middle grade reader, I would have thought the villains of The Beasts of Clawstone Castle to be too stereotypically bad too cardboard flat and tediously rendered).

[QNPoohBear]

Eva Ibbotson's fantasy books are fun but yes, simplistic and with some stereotypes. I still gave Which Witch? to my niece last year because I thought she'd enjoy it and isn't ready for such a big, complex series like Harry Potter.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

QNPoohBear wrote: "Eva Ibbotson's fantasy books are fun but yes, simplistic and with some stereotypes. I still gave Which Witch? to my niece last year because I thought she'd enjoy it and isn't ready fo..."

I did enjoy her The Great Ghost Rescue a trifle more than The Beasts of Clawstone Castle, but yes, it also is stereotypical, with annoyingly one sided villains and an ending totally deus ex machina.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

The Seer of Shadows

I expected more from Avi. The best parts of this were the historical bits, especially the photography, especially the notes afterwards. The epilogue is implausible (but no, not impossible). Recommended only if you actually love MG ghost stories.

[QNPoohBear]

Cheryl wrote: "The Seer of Shadows

I expected more from Avi. The best parts of this were the historical bits, especially the photography, especially the notes afterwards. The epilogue is implausib..."

No it's not up to the level of Something Upstairs. I haven't really liked any of his more recent books and I never liked Charlotte Doyle.

[Harley]

QNPoohBear wrote: "Cheryl wrote: "The Seer of Shadows

I expected more from Avi. The best parts of this were the historical bits, especially the photography, especially the notes afterwards. The epilog..."

Charlotte Doyle is my favorite.

[Beverly, former Miscellaneous Club host]

I also really liked Charlotte Doyle.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

Heh. Yeah, I like Charlotte Doyle, too, though I did not read it as a child (had no interest). I'd have to reread some of his other works to say anything for sure. I will try Something Upstairs when I get a chance.

[QNPoohBear]

I'm the only one who didn't like Charlotte Doyle. All the other kids loved it. Something Upstairs is creepy, realistic but oh so historically inaccurate! It's a good talking point though and the historical society has a Something Upstairs walking tour for grade school students.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

:smiles:

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

I can just picture Peg Kehret, the author of Ghost Dog Secrets asking a room of kids what they wanted her to write about in her next book and hearing "Ghosts!" "Dogs!" "Secrets!" What's amazing is that she made them work together so well, for a story that teaches us good ways to help abused animals, and is an adventure with drama, humor, scary bits, and themes of family & friendship.

There's a knitting plan for cat blankets. Links to resources. Guidelines to incorporate citizenship lessons into the classroom that will actually enable children to make a real difference. A bit about how to recognize, and report, a meth lab. Respect for service people (father died in Iraq). A cue to discuss whether dogs are property, and therefore what's the difference between rescuing or stealing one.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

Of more universal relevance is a bit when Rusty tries to get a different decision from his mother: "Sometimes it's best to keep my mouth shut and let Mom think things over. If I argued now, she might feel compelled to defend her original position, but if she had time to ponder the problem, she might decide [otherwise]."

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

I just learned about The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown and added it to my to-read shelf.

"Otherworldly chills add a layer of horror to this story about friendship, honoring Black history, and standing up for yourself."

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

The Time of Green Magic is a literary but haunting story. Not for everyone, but some will find it amazing.

[Beverly, former Miscellaneous Club host]

Cheryl wrote: "The Time of Green Magic is a literary but haunting story. Not for everyone, but some will find it amazing."

I recently finished reading the Casson Family series by Hilary McKay and really enjoyed it. Our library does have The Time of Green Magic and I put it on hold. I always like a good ghost story.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

The Secret Grave:

I enjoyed it as a fun genre adventure. It's got a lot of tropes like a lonely middle school child, middle in the family, sick sibling, mysterious new friend, secrets in the attic, etc.... but all are told refreshingly and with just enough twist to engage.

The ending was original, creative. I really like this and if you like MG spooky stories I bet you will, too.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Ghost Boy of MacKenzie House


Great Prince Edward Island setting, dealing with loss, grief, blaming oneself unnecessarily, and how (relocated to PEI from Ottawa after her parents were killed in a car accident) ten year old Chloe and her Prince Edward Island and also ten years of age Marshall help both the ghost boy of the book title and also Chloe herself deal with loss, grief and guilt. Lovely ghost story, not really creepy, and Chloe and Marsh's friendship is delightfully organic and without any hints of romance, sexuality and physical attraction.

And I love how Patti Larsen has Aunt Larry gift Chloe a copy of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and how AOGG really does seem to help Chloe cope with her parents' death better (although I do think that Emily of New Moon would fir better for Chloe than AOGG). But yes, five stars!!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Ghost Witch


Especially my inner child really appreciates how Jenny manages to not only bravely and courageously stand up to the ghost witch of the book title and confront her penchant for haunting, for making hideous looking monsters appear, but makes a deal with her that will let the ghost witch scare a huge number of people without no longer bothering and frightening Jenny. And while the text is a bit simplistic, on the surface and the characters all lack depth, this does not bother my above mentioned inner child who thinks that The Ghost Witch is fun, engaging, humorous and not too creepy.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Haunted Christmas: Ghost Stories


Not "true" ghost stories but fourteen (for me) delightful and never too creepy ghostly Christmas short stories, and that I saying how Jo-Anne Christensen's style and contents reminds me very nicely of Lucy Maud Montgomery's short fiction, that is high praise indeed from me. Five stars, and I liked ALL of the tales!!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

On a different note, consider the powerful Newbery book Long Way Down by OwnVoices author Jason Reynolds. For older children. Target of censors. But heartbreaking and beautiful.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Ghost Stories of Christmas


Christensen does a marvellous textual job regarding set-up, sense of place and that she equally knows how to portray both Christmas and winter realistically but at the same time nicely descriptively imaginatively. And yes, and for me quite majorly happily so, I very much appreciate that (at least in my opinion) NONE of Christensen's featured tales for Ghost Stories of Christmas are spine-chilling, creepy or horrifying in any manner, that the sixteen accounts are thus not ever frightening, but are indeed and instead very often featuring sadness and painfulness that need to mitigated and rectified by supernatural means, by ghosts, angels and the like. A really nice book, winter and Christmas themed and with helpful ghosts, but even though these are supposedly "true" ghost stories, there are no sources provided and that for me, Ghost Stories of Christmas feels more fiction than non fiction.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

Cheryl wrote: "On a different note, consider the powerful Newbery book Long Way Down by OwnVoices author Jason Reynolds. For older children. Target of censors. But heartbreaking a..."

Turns out there's a graphic novel of this novel in verse, too. I checked it out, and it's terrific.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story


With his 2016 middle grade Christmas ghost story Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story, R.L. Stine does definitely show that first person narrator Rick Scroogeman is a total and absolute bully and in fact also the worst kind of bully since Rick is textually being presented by Stine as actually believing that his relentless and constant campaign of terror against his classmates, his family etc. is simply good fun. And yes, I do appreciate the Dickensian school and character names encountered in Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story (although I do wonder if the intended audience, if ten to twelve year olds would even realise this and catch on so to speak) and that the A Christmas Carol like visits of three spirits certainly has some promise. But in my humble opinion and frankly, said above mentioned potential kind of evaporates pretty quickly in Young Scrooge: A Very Scary Christmas Story, and that at the end of the story, Rick Scroogeman is still a bully and has not really learned any lessons at all.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Green Ghost


In The Green Ghost Dane Bauer's featured plot presents a delightful winter and Christmas themed ghost story which (at least in my humble opinion) is wonderful, is perfect for young emerging readers (and especially for girls) from about the age of six to eight or nine who want a simple, easy reading ghostly Yuletide themed paranormal tale without any eeriness and horror, but who also desire some emotional richness, potential and actual heartbreak as well as avoidable dangers to point out, to discuss, to consider (such as in particular how in the parts of The Green Ghost which Marion Dane Bauer has taking place in 1938, Lillian venturing outside in the snow with her younger sister Elsa and to keep on and on searching for a "perfect" Christmas tree in the cold of winter is rather foolish, hugely dangerous and pretty much a tragedy waiting to happen), with The Green Ghost also featuring in Lillian a friendly, delightfully helpful ghost girl (and with my inner eight year old reader absolutely adoring everything about The Green Ghost even if parts of the story do make me want to cry and actually did indeed make me cry). And while I do not think that The Green Ghost needs illustrations, Peter Ferguson's artwork is nice and that both his pictures and Marion Dane Bauer's story rate with four stars.


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Blue Ghost


The Blue Ghost is spare on textual details and Marion Dare Bauer with The Blue Ghost offers to her recently readers a pleasantly eerie ambience infused with the combined thrills of both solving a mystery and also helping someone in need and with Dare Bauer's narrative for The Blue Ghost equally and thankfully so never being either contents-wise or stylistically overly creepy, never being violent and never with unfriendly or with evil paranormal experiences to be encountered either, that the blue ghost of the book title is entirely friendly, is simply an apparition needing and asking for help and with Liz' experiences going back in time changing the past in order to rectify and make positive the present. And while Suling Wang's artwork for The Blue Ghost is perhaps a bit visually bland, it also does therefore never visually distract from Dare Bauer's text and as such works very well providing a nice but never aesthetically interfering or overpowering decorative trim for The Blue Ghost and especially so since Wang's pictures of a very kind-eyed and totally unfrightening blue ghost also helps to keep the mood and the ambience of The Blue Ghost from in any manner becoming scary and/or too uncanny.

Oh and by the way, the book cover image for The Blue Ghost unfortunately makes the ghost of Elizabeth appear considerably freakier than how she is both verbally presented by Marion Dane Bauer and illustrated by Suling Wang (so please do not judge The Blue Ghost by its cover, as neither the text nor the images of the blue ghost are in any way creepy or frightening).

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Red Ghost


Nice enough story and good for recently independent readers from about the age of six to eight or nine, a bit creepy (with a haunted doll) but not too terrifying, although even for my inner child, the lack of a decent backstory and that the actual ghost only appears for something like two pages is a bit annoying (three stars and part of a four book series where ghosts are matched with a colour).

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

I have quite enjoyed Marion Dane Bauer's Ghost series, although I do say that The Blue Ghost, The Red Ghost, the The Green Ghost (and probably also the one I have not yet read, The Golden Ghost) are basically meant for young readers (from about the age of six to nine maximum) and readers above the age of ten would generally want and need more narrative meat, more developed characters etc. But for young, recently independent readers (who like ghost stories that are generally not too creepy), I do recommend Marion Dane Bauer's Ghost series and in particular The Blue Ghost and the Christmas themed The Green Ghost.

[QNPoohBear]

Manybooks wrote: "I have quite enjoyed Marion Dane Bauer's Ghost series, although I do say that The Blue Ghost, The Red Ghost, the The Green Ghost (and probably also the o..."

Those sound like they would have been up my alley when I was in 6th grade or so. I know the author's name so I probably did read them!

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

QNPoohBear wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "I have quite enjoyed Marion Dane Bauer's Ghost series, although I do say that The Blue Ghost, The Red Ghost, the The Green Ghost (and p..."

The series is definitely fun, not spectacular but fun (and not too creepy).