From My Reading Chair…
Do you know the collective noun for a group of ghosts... A fraid of ghosts?! Perfect. No notes!
The tracing-paper cover sheet, the peeping apertures, the child and ghost sharing a home but occupying two very different realities... Oliver Jeffers makes opening the book feel IMMEDIATELY like discovering that the very object itself is haunted. And I haven’t even entered the house yet!
Even the endpapers are, ironically, alive with personality! How does Jeffers give a whole fraid of ghosts their own tiny temperaments with little more than differently shaped eyes?! Magic.
The house beneath them sits in hazy greys and whites, part old photograph, part hand-drawn apparition. Its steep silhouette reminds me of the lonely theatricality of an Edward Hopper house and the cinematic unease of the Bates home in Psycho. Lines, photography, collage, neon colour and tracing paper begin passing through one another.
This is not illustration sitting alongside text. This is symbiotic bookmaking excellence.
Our little girl searches for ghosts while they remain gloriously visible to us. Her brilliant neon green figure strikes through the subdued rooms, claiming our attention even as the spectral shapes gather around her. The comedy depends upon dramatic irony: we can see precisely what she cannot.
Turn the tracing-paper sheet and a ghost settles perfectly onto a staircase. 'OooooOoooO!'
Turn again and another apparition enters a room. 'BOO!'
Our hands have moved the haunting into place. I absolutely love how Jeffers makes us co-conspirators in this hilarious game. We turn the translucent sheets, line up the layers and discover who’s lurking. Every page turn draws us further into this supernatural, pantomime-esque game of hide-and-seek.
Jeffers also plays brilliantly with space. A dense, full-page room may face an expanse of near-blank paper and simple text, creating a pause that feels both inviting and faintly ominous. Then the next turn produces another compositional surprise: an overlay, a photograph, an enlarged spread, a fresh collision between the living visitor and the ghosts she cannot find.
The book never talks down to its audience because it trusts children to look closely and work out the joke. They’re collaborators here, making the ghosts appear with their own hands. It does give me pause to think about how we groan-ups could spend a little longer looking and listening when children notice something we haven’t. Although, if you’ve spotted a little spooky thing in the basement who wants a tea party, PLEASE don’t tell me before bed, okay?!
There’s a Ghost in This House is playful, witty and technically astonishing. I’m marvelling at the bookmaking while thoroughly enjoying the ridiculous residents. A portable piece of interactive art in which every pair of hands becomes the ghostly presence moving through it.
There’s a Ghost in This House is not simply a story held between two covers; it’s more of a paper séance! A piece of perfection!
Creep on Reading, Pumpkins!
