Not only is this a suspenseful, intricate story with a ghost who seems to be menacing, but it is rich with history and well crafted characters who are able to uncover the truth of the haunting in the end. The only truly traditional ghost story in that bunch would be Rebecca Wade's The Whispering House. With that in mind, as well as the fact that good ghost stories are hard to come by, I created the label Ghost Story, although this is more of a catchall for any story with ghosts in it, from something very literary like Roddy Doyle's A Greyhound of a Girl to the fantastic YA graphic novel Anya's Ghost to the wonderful and very tame Olivia Kidney series by Ellen Potter.
I also think that most kids have a healthy interest in the supernatural, whether it exists or not, and like to be a little bit scared by it from time to time, the same way it's fun to be scared by a really crazy roller coaster. These days, with so many violently graphic movies and video games on the market I think it's a true challenge to write a ghost story for young readers that is not explicit yet satisfying, which is exactly what Fleming does with On the Day I Died: Stories from the Grave. The stories I remember weren't gory and nothing my parents (who would not let me see The Amityville Horror when I was ten but did allow me to see Poltergeist three years later, much to my delight) would object to. I loved a good ghost story when I was a kid, which was also a time when things of a scary and gruesome nature were not commonplace in the media unlike today.
I am so excited by this book and hope that it heralds more to come.
On the Day I Died: Stories from the Grave is the newest book from the multitalented (and multi-awardwinning) Candace Fleming with cool over art by Jeremy Holmes.
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