October 23, 2015

The Ghosts Go Spooking, by Chrissy Bozik and Patricia Storms

This week our family has been having fun with The Ghosts Go Spooking, a new picture book written by Chrissy Bozik and illustrated by my friend, Patricia Storms. Sung to the tune of The Ants Go Marching, the story traces the antics as a group of friendly ghosts make the most of Halloween night on their way to a costume party at a haunted house. A nice touch is that the ghosts themselves are costumed—as a clown, a witch, a cowboy. As as they go, one-by-one, two-by-two, etc., one of them (a different one every time—the scary one, the silly one, the wiggly one) stops and does a variety of things—knockings on a door, does a jive, does some tricks.

The story is more fun than scary, which is a good thing with our crowd, and my kids like the mischief the ghosts get up to, their amusing extra-textual dialogue in the illustrations: “Better than a rabbit,” exclaims the Bunny-hopping ghost when “the clever one” conjures bats from his hat. Momentum builds as the ghosts eventually end up spooking ten-by-ten, arriving at their party to find a horn-playing werewolf and a vampire on the double-bass, spooky rock-and-rolling against an enormous yellow moon. No doubt this is a party that will go one well into the night.

Boo boo boo…