Ghosts – Butler's Pantry

With October around the corner comes the creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky season known as Halloween. There are at least two kinds of scary in youth literature. Some books feature uncanny but cute stories and characters, that make the season less scary, especially for younger readers. The middle-grade novels featured in this week’s Butler Bookshelf lean more toward eerie, unsettling, and downright frightening. This week’s feature pick is a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women: Little Monsters by Máire Roche. Meg March and her younger sisters, Jo, Beth, and Amy, have more to worry about than being children in foster care. The March sisters are monsters. To make matters worse, a mysterious creature has been terrorizing their new town, and Meg can’t always remember where she is when she transforms. Will the March sisters find their way while still keep their real identities a secret, or will it all come crashing down?

Check out this and other monstrous titles:

Little Monsters
Máire Roche
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing/ALADDIN
Available now!

Kiki and the New Magic (Kiki’s Delivery Service Book 2)
Eiko Kadono
Random House Children’s Books/Delacorte Press
Available now!

Remember Me, Daphne
Celia Krampien
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing/Atheneum
Available now!

The Doll House
D.W. Gillespie
Random House Children’s Books/Delacorte Press
Available now!

The Replay Trap
Juliana Brandt
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing/ALADDIN
Available now!

Ghost in the House

by Ammi-Joan Paquette

illustrated by Adam Record

Candlewick 2013

I love Halloween, and I love things that are creepy…but oddly enough I don’t like to be scared. Haunted houses? Forget it! So it’s no wonder that I’ve fallen in love with Ghost in the House written by Ammi-Joan Paquette and illustrated by Adam Record. This is a haunted house I’d actually like to visit.

The story starts off on a black page with the simple exclamation “Boo!” On the next page a ghost appears—the most adorable ghost you’ve ever seen (yes, even more than Casper). This structure continues, enunciating the creepy sounds the house makes and breaking tension with a collection of friendly creatures: a mummy, a monster, a skeleton, and a witch. Finally the creatures stumble upon something that really frightens them—a human boy.

This book somehow manages to maintain the traditional eeriness we associate with haunted houses, which includes striped wall paper, creaking stairs, and shadows at every turn. Yet its full of bright and contrasting colors. The creatures themselves are vibrant, even as they wander down dark and gray hallways. You might even wonder what this cheery bunch is doing in such a spooky place.

I love how simply and effectively the illustrations reflect the text. Two eyes on a black background and the ghost’s worried expression reveal the characters’ unease. Possibly my favorite page features the human boy, with a wide-eyed look that conveys his bafflement. As the creatures run away, the boy looks straight at the reader and shrugs, as if to say, “What can you do?”

As you’re visiting haunted houses, or perhaps haunting them yourself, “on this dark, spooky night,” it’s always good to remember that there isn’t a creature scarier than a human. Have a Happy Halloween!