Tag Archives: Ghosts

Thornhill

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Thornhill by Pam Smy

Book of the Week: 21 January 2018

It’s March 2017 and Ella has moved to a new house. Her bedroom overlooks a large Victorian building surrounded by a garden that has turned into a jungle. She glimpses a girl through the barbed wire that keeps out trespassers and decides to investigate. Back in the 1980s, Mary is being bullied in the children’s home by an un-named girl and is despondent that most of  the adults who work at Thornhill don’t seem to notice what is going on. Mary takes refuge in refusing to talk and spends a lot of time making puppets in her room. She tells her story in the form of a diary which is interspersed with Ella’s story told completely in black and white illustrations.

This wonderfully designed book, with its black-edged pages and alternating text and illustrations interleaved with solid black pages, is creepy and unsettling and casts an unflinching eye on loneliness and bullying. It has echoes of Jane Eyre and The Secret Garden and would be enjoyed by fans of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Thornhill – written and illustrated by Pam Smy

 

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Fir

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Fir by Sharon Gosling

Book of the Week: 26 November 2017

Our move to a fantastic, new purpose-built library has meant no Book of the Week for a while, but now it returns with a snowy tale for winter by Sharon Gosling. An un-named, teenaged narrator tells this story of the Stromberg family and their move from Stockholm to the north to run a timber plantation. The family arrive at a huge, isolated mansion to find a malevolent housekeeper, in the Mrs Danvers mould (Read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier or ask your parents or teachers if you want to know more about Mrs Danvers), along with a group of children and their tutor, Tomas, who are studying conservation and the ancient forests that surround the house. Gradually, the weather worsens and everyone is marooned by a heavy snowfall that seems to bring inexplicable events: blood-stains in the snow and sightings of strange children in the winter wastes.

This is one of the Red Eye series of books, so if you like stories such as Frozen Charlotte (see Book of the Week 5th March) and prefer your horror to be short on gore, but long on feelings of dread, then Fir is for you.

The Evolution of a Library

A reminder of the different locations occupied by our School Library.

 

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Frozen Charlotte

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Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell

Book of the Week: 5 March 2017

A sure-fire way to add creepiness to a scary film is to include a shot of a dimly-lit room with some ancient china dolls staring blankly ahead. Alex Bell has used this device to good effect in Frozen Charlotte by having old fashioned dolls as a major plot component.

Sophie is staying on the Isle of Skye with cousins she has not seen for years. Uncle James is a painter and a rather careless parent, Cameron is a brooding and talented pianist, six-year old Lilias has a morbid fear of bones, and perhaps an over-active imagination, and Piper seems friendly enough but has an unexplained dislike of her brother. Their remote house used to be a girls’ school many years ago, until a series of unpleasant accidents ensured it was closed down. The girls back then used to play with a collection of small china dolls called Frozen Charlottes, which are now in a collection case in one of the bedrooms. Do these dolls exert a malignant influence over everyone who comes into contact with them or is the isolation and tense family relationships that make everyone doubt their own sanity?

A fast-moving and sometimes gory plot to be read with the lights on.

Dead Scared

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Dead Scared (Book 1: Haunt) by Curtis Jobling

Book of the Week: 19 April 2015

Haunt

It might sound fun to be invisible, but if the reason no-one can see you is that you are actually dead, it might not be quite so enjoyable. Will is the victim of a hit-and-run driver and finds himself a ghost who can’t seem to move on to the next level. Although he isn’t even sure what that might be. The only person who can see him is his best friend Dougie, and together they set out to find out who killed Will. Despite the tragic beginning, this is a light-hearted read full of banter between friends and the sorts of problems you might have whether you are alive, or a ghost who is forced to haunt the living.

A second book in the series has already been published. If you would like to find out more about the author and his other books (He is the designer of ‘Bob the Builder’ among other things) his blog is here.

 

The Whispering Skull

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9780857532657The Whispering Skull (Book 2: Lockwood & Co.)

by Jonathan Stroud

Book of the Week: 1 March 2015

The second book in the series that is a cross between Ghostbusters and Sherlock Holmes, features the intrepid ghost-hunters of 35 Portland Row being asked to guard the coffin of Edmund Bickerstaff, a doctor who was suspected of grave-robbing and witchcraft. This proves to be disastrous and results in the freeing of an evil spirit and an ancient and deadly artefact being stolen from the grave. Lockwood, George and Lucy must track down the artefact, win their bet with their rivals, the Fittes Agency, and avoid some ruthless enemies. Whether they will do any of this is in grave doubt and things are not helped by a talking skull imprisoned in a jar that exerts an increasingly sinister hold over Lucy.

As in the first book, the ghosts are murderous, a London infested with spirits that can only be vanquished by children is detailed and convincing, and the characters are well-drawn. Anthony Lockwood is arrogant, mysterious and brilliant; George is messy and geeky, and Lucy is trying to develop her supernatural gifts whilst being increasingly fascinated by the enigmatic Lockwood. The banter between the characters is sarcastic and frequently very funny and the plot has plenty of action and gory thrills.

The author’s website is here