<i>There’s No Such Thing as Ghosts!</i> (review)
2008; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 62; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.0.0287
ISSN1558-6766
Autores ResumoReviewed by: There’s No Such Thing as Ghosts! Deborah Stevenson Eeckhout, Emmanuelle; There’s No Such Thing as Ghosts!; written and illus. by Emmanuelle Eeckhout. Kane/Miller, 2008; 26p ISBN 978-1-933605-91-3 $13.95 R 4–7 yrs In this Belgian import, our skeptical narrator, who could be either a boy or a girl in the pictures, is determined that if there is a ghost in the haunted old house down the street, it’s going to get caught. Thorough searching from room to room, however, nets the protagonist a big zip, and the unbeliever leaves triumphantly announcing that there’s no such thing as ghosts. The pictures tell a different story: right from the start, when a host o’ ghosts greet the kid with a “Bienvenue!” banner, it’s clear the house is ghost city, but in every scene our ghost-hunter is looking in just the wrong direction as the ghosts either go about their business or hide just out of plain sight. That’s an amusing irony, and the art turns it into a series of funny tableaux, each offering compact, delicate comedy in shaded linework accented with yellow and touched occasionally with pink. Our thwarted narrator, often reduced to a dark silhouette, is overshadowed by the playful little ghosts who secrete themselves behind the sofa cushions, hide themselves under the bubbles in the bath (equipped with a snorkel), and wait with squirming, cross-legged impatience for the visitor to quit their bathroom. There’s not a whole lot of trajectory here, but the sly yet gentle tone and the happily frolicking ghosts make this a likely winner with kids who enjoyed Duquennoy’s The Ghost’s Dinner (BCCB 12/94) or Landry’s The Snow Ghosts (BCCB 11/03), or with those who just appreciate gamboling ghosts who get one over on a cocky human. Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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