Ghosts!  Ghostly Tales From Folklore

By Alvin Schwartz, illustrated by Victoria Chess

Ghosts!  Ghostly Tales From Folklore is a collection of ghost stories for young children, written for beginning readers.  The stories are based on folktales from England and the United States.  The author takes the tales and simplifies them to make them appropriate for a young audience.  The collection includes six ghost stories, as well as an explanation of where each comes from.  At the end, he provides readers with a chant for when they are faced with a ghost to make it go away.  This helps to reassure young readers who have just read the series of scary stories.

"The Teeny-Tiny Woman," based on a version from Cornwall, England, is my favorite story from the collection.  It tells about a teeny-tiny woman taking a walk to a graveyard and finding some teeny-tiny teeth.  She takes the teeth home, but before long a voice demands that she return the teeth.  Frightened, she tosses the teeth out the window, and hears teeny-tiny footsteps return to the graveyard.  This story has a good oral quality that keeps the words flowing as the story is told.  The illustrations also have an important role in the characterization of the teeny-tiny woman.  Her expressions help readers know what she is feeling at each moment of the story.

Ghosts!  Ghostly Tales From Folklore is a fine collection for young readers.  The stories probably won't appeal to older readers because of the very basic language and simplified course of events.  Many children enjoy ghost stories, so this seems like a good option for very young children to hear scary stories that are at an appropriate level.

Schwartz, Alvin.  1991.  Ghosts!  Ghostly tales from folklore.  Ill. by Victoria Chess.  New York:  HarperCollins.  ISBN: 0060217979.