A Book of Spooks and Spectres

by Ruth Manning-Sanders, Robin Jacques (Illustrator)

Twenty-three ghostly tales from around the world.

Genres: Childrens

128 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1979

About the author

Ruth Manning-Sanders, youngest daughter of an English minister, describes her childhood as “extraordinarily happy. . . with kind and understanding parents and any amount of freedom.” She read omnivorously, and she and her two sisters wrote and acted their own plays. A Shakespeare scholar at Manchester University, she later married Cornish artist George Manning-Sanders. They began married life in a horse drawn caravan, and traveled to all parts of the British Isles.
Mrs. Manning-Sanders has collected folk and fairy stories from around the world and she published more than 90 books during her lifetime.

Reviews

[Emmy]

This was one of my favorites from when I was a little kid, and I'm shocked that it has taken me this long to update it on Goodreads. I've read this book more times than I can count, and it was always a staple of my fairy tale reading.

Picking it up as an adult, I'm struck by how many of the stories lack the same chills they gave me all those years ago. But, all the same, there's some really good tales here! My favorites are "Old Tommy and the Spectre", "The Owl", and "The Black Spectre".

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly]

All her books are splendid, I have no favourites really. The illustrations are perfectly suited, and I appreciate how she pulls her tales from several different cultures. I adored these as a child, and have read them to my children, and they hold up well.

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)

[Cha]

Someone started a little community library in our apartment basement next to the bins. And my partner thought I might like to read about some spooks and spectres. Which, fair enough. My favourite stories were the ones where the spooks were just messing around having parties or parades or creating mischief. Including ones where nothing much happens.

[Dawn Gehler]

a little book of little stories about ghosts and spectres. Spectres are ghosts that are caught in the middle of heaven and hell. They weren't good enough for heaven and too bad for hell.

[Edwina Book Anaconda]

Had a wonderful time escaping into this book.
Such fun reading these stories from all around the world.

[Katy Lohman]

This was my favorite of the series...I especially loved the tale of the owl-headed monster.