A world full of ghosts

Gr 3-5-This book introduces ghosts from around the world, including the silky from England and Scotland, who does housework and plays pranks on lazy members of the household. The egui from China look for food and trouble. Sprinkled throughout the encyclopedic entries are short personal stories about encounters with ghosts. What could have been a really good idea falls short in its execution. The entries are inconsistent-some are concise and interesting; others meander without a point. The personal stories are the weakest part of the book; they consist of people telling stories about seeing a ghost without any real payoff moment. The cartoon illustrations add a surreal quality to the book, and the warning to readers in the beginning will draw them in. While ghost stories are always a favorite with the elementary crowd, there are better collections available.-Beth Cuddy, Seward Elementary School, Auburn, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Helpful ghosts, hungry ghosts and ocean ghosts are just a few of the spirits that readers meet in this thematic collection of 25 very short tales. Interspersed with "true ghost stories" ostensibly told by real people (first names and home locations appear at the ends) are explanatory accounts of traditional specters that include the tidy British silky that clears up messes, the Chinese egui in search of food because it has no descendents to leave offerings for it and the Japanese sake-drinking sea spirits. Rated with one to three skulls, most of the tales aren't very scary due to their brevity. Mongeau's atmospheric, swirling watercolors occasionally inspire horror (the painting of the bloody puddle with the Saudi Arabian Afrit has a gruesome quality), but many exhibit a touch of whimsy, not the shock factor that true ghost lovers seek. D"a de los Muertos in Mexico and Halloween in the United States and Canada are described, and the book can always be used in the fall, but the stories deserve to be told in gorier detail. No index or sources. (map) (Folklore. 8-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Excerpt Mexico The Day of the Dead The cemetery is lit up with candles and torches. Picnic baskets overflow with delicious food, arches of bright marigolds tower over the gravestones, grinning toy skulls and skeletons are propped up against photographs of dead people. Children play tag and grown-ups laugh and sing. It's party time in the cemetery, Mexico's favorite holiday: Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. On this one day of the year, death is something to laugh at and no one is afraid. People come to the cemetery to celebrate life and death with their favorite ghosts. The children eat sugar skulls and Bread of the Dead. The sounds of their merrymaking rise up and float in the air. The pain of death is forgotten and everyone is happy. Excerpted from A World Full of Ghosts by Charis Cotter All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.