The Ghost Drum

Ghost World #1

by Susan Price

The Carnegie Medal winning modern classic.

""Whenever you poke your nose round the door, pack courage, and leave fear at home.""

The Ghost Drum is an original fairy-tale of shamans, shape-shifters, magic-battles, slaves and kings, set against darkness, Arctic cold, starlight and the brilliant jewel colours of folk-art.

On a Midwinter night, a shaman demands a new-born baby girl from her slave-mother - and carries the child away in a hut that stalks across the snow on chicken legs.

The new-born son of the Czar is imprisoned, for life, in a tiny room at the top of a tall tower - because the Czar is afraid his son might outdo him.

The slave's daughter, and the princeling, both long for the freedom to live in their own way, but their search for freedom earns them vicious enemies - the ruthless Princess Margaretta, and Kuzma, the bear-shaman.

Can the slave's-daughter and the prince survive?

This classic novel, winner of the prestigious Carnegie Medal, is now available again as a large 'trade' paperback.

REVIEWS

A find for lovers of folklore and fantasy. "The Kirkus Review"

Price provides an icy, intense setting for her fantasy, which haunts almost as much as her unique characters. When she describes how, "the sky stars glitter in their darkness, and the snow-stars glisten in their whiteness, and between the two there hangs a shivering curtain of cold twilight," readers will know they are in the palm of a writer whose magical eye for detail matches her ability to draw a story sweeping in scope. - "Booklist"

A spell is indeed cast over the reader: 'Words can alter sight and hearing, taste, touch and smell. Used with a higher skill they can make our senses clearer.' Susan Price is happily blessed with this higher skill; it is the clarity of her prose which particularly impresses. It is difficult for an individual to attempt a form sharpened and clarified by generations of story tellers - a folk tale brightens with use and all the extraneous material wears away over the years. There is nothing out of place in THE GHOST DRUM: as in a spell every word counts: 'The alphabet in the book spells out words you can say, but the alphabet in the drum spells out things that can never be said.' The reverberations of this new-minted myth continue to echo after the story's finished. - "Mary Cutler"

Download a free sample, or click on 'Look Inside' to try the book.

Susan Price is an acclaimed author of over 60 books, which have been translated into many languages, including Japanese, Chinese and Russian. She has won several awards, including the Carnegie and the Guardian, and has been short-listed for the Whitbread.

She is a founder member of the Authors Electric Collective (Find them on-line.)

Visit her Amazon Author Page to find out more about her books, and links to her website and blogs.

Genres: Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Young Adult, Fiction, Middle Grade, Childrens, Magic

138 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes indeed, as someone who has always enjoyed fairy and folk tales, I simply adore how (and like actually quite common in Slavic lore), Susan Price has her 1987 Carnegie Medal winning original young adult fairy tale novel The Ghost Drum being presented as a story told by an ever-present narrator, in this particular case by an educated and talking cat (delightfully reminding me both of Charles Perrault's Puss in Boots and E.T.A. Hoffmann's Tomcat Murr), that at the beginning and at the head of each chapter of The Ghost Drum said tethered feline introduces the scenes and the characters and with at the conclusion of The Ghost Drum, the tale-telling cat then asking the listener (or the reader) to pass along the featured account so that it may continue its journey (and which of course plays homage to the fact that originally storytelling was oral in nature, that written literature only came along much later and of course owes its very existence to word-of-mouth).

And well, considering that The Ghost Drum is obviously absolutely, totally meant to be read as a fairy tale (or as a folk tale), Susan Price also does definitely tend to keep her featured text almost entirely focused on setting, description and bien sûr on the presented plot and not really all that much on character development, not on providing literary depth and nuances. But very much thankfully so this, for indeed, if The Ghost Drum were textually concentrating on individual characters and on their external and internal lives and thoughts, one could in my opinion really no longer be considering Price's narrative as being a true fairy tale (and yes, even an original one), since with fairy and with folk tales, the presented plot is generally meant to be epical and the different scenarios and events being shown to occur are what is essential and that ALL characters actually should mirror this and are often really more narrational devices to move along the story from beginning to climax, to the conclusion. So yes indeed, that Susan Price totally does the latter with The Ghost Drum, it really makes me hugely textually happy, as far too often original novels and novellas labelled as fairy and folktale like kind of seem to drown what is essential, namely the storyline, in philosophy, internal character traits and their development.

Therefore, that the The Ghost Drum basically features a verbally very much straight-forward moving tale full full full of a multitude of facts and events, featuring Chingis' journey from birth to death and back to birth again (as a woman of power, as a female shaman and white witch, as a type of Baba Yaga figure who even resides in a hut on top of the well known in Slavic tradition chicken legs) to fight against evil in the form of Tsar Guidon and his sister Magaretta, as well as the jealous and obviously misogynist shaman Kuzma (and to place the rescued Tsarevitch Safa onto the throne), yes this all has made for a very exciting and interesting reading experience for me with regard to The Ghost Drum, and with me totally adoring how Susan Price cleverly uses not only Slavic folklore but also Western European myth (such as for example the Greek myth of Persephone, and that in order to return from the land of the dead, one must not eat or drink anything whilst there) and how she also inverts the classic fairy tale trope of the princess in the tower by having with Tzarevitch Safa an imprisoned prince in the tower. And of course and finally, The Ghost Drum with its textual focus on the external happenings and not on the internal, not on what and how the characters inhabiting the pages of The Ghost Drum think, feel and have as their Weltanschauung, this of course (to and for me) totally renders The Ghost Drum into a true and bona fide fairy tale and not into a fantasy story with some folkloristic and fairy tale elements.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful fairy tale about a prince who gets rescued from a tower by a female shaman. Set in medieval Russia with Lapland witches. Excellent writing. You can feel the winter's cold in your bones as you read. Recommended for young readers and for adults who enjoy a yarn with magic in it.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a huge fan of YA lit, but The Ghost Drum won me over--understatement. Each chapter begins with an almost-lyrical paragraph about the mystical cat who tells us the story. It actually works in the book.

The Ghost Drum is set in Lapland, in a tyrannical czar's court, as well as among a small community of witches and shamans.

[Stephi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely, fairytale-esqe story of magic and royalty.

[Die Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In a place far distant from where you are now grows an oak-tree by a lake.
Round the oak’s trunk is a chain of golden links.
Tethered to the chain is a learned cat, and this most learned of all cats walks round and round the tree continually.
As it walks one way, it sings songs.
As it walks the other, it tells stories.
This is one of the stories the cat tells.”
That’s the opening paragraph of ‘The Ghost Drum’ by Susan Price, and I can promise, it only gets better from there. Admit it, you’re hooked already aren’t you? You want to know what the cat’s going to tell you? Well, I can guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. This gorgeous little book had me completely entranced from the first moment I started reading it. I’ve held off reviewing it for a long time because I don’t feel I can really do it justice in a few words, but I’ll give it a go.
The story is set in a somewhere-far-away, somewhen-long-ago land of Eastern European blizzards and cunning sorcery. It’s billed as a children’s book, but please don’t be fooled by that description. Whilst I think that this book should be on every primary school reading list (despite some of the quite disturbing later events and imagery - chapter twelve will haunt me forever!) this is far more than just a kid’s story.
The writing is exquisite, almost poetic and balances lush description perfectly with simple language to create images that are utterly vivid and affecting. The story told is very reminiscent of traditional folk tales, with witches and Czars and magic huts on chicken legs, but it’s a story of old-fashioned quality with some very modern twists. The young royal imprisoned in the tower is a prince (well, a Czarevich) not a princess. The hero is a girl named Chingis who must work unbelievably hard to learn her birth-right from her adoptive witch-mother. The world Susan Price creates in this book is saturated with jewel colours, at once familiar from fairytale and yet fascinating and exotic at the same time. The cyclical nature of the narrative, always returning to the cat winding around its tree, is echoed in the overall theme of the book and particularly in the last chapter where, without wanting to give too much away, a very satisfying conclusion is reached.
Just suffice to say that somewhere around the start of chapter five there’s a bit of this story that made me cry in the middle of a packed London train, out of sheer joy. That’s how good this book is. I will read it over and over again.

[Nick Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shaman me for not reading this sooner...

If you haven’t yet come across the Ghost World sequence, then you’ve missed a series of books as significant in their way as Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles, Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising, Diana Wynne Jones’s Crestomanci books, and even the Chronicles of Narnia. ‘The Ghost Drum’ and its sequels (or prequels) are up there alongside those classics in terms of quality, but have a style all of their own which sets them apart.

Reading ‘The Ghost Drum’ isn’t so much like reading an ordinary children’s novel as hearing a fairytale from the Brothers Grimm – it doesn’t feel like something that somebody made up, but like a legend that’s been told for centuries. Be warned, it’s as hard-boiled as any Grimm tale, too – it has one of the most jaw-dropping scenes (several of them, in fact) that I’ve ever come across in a book. Any book. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you can survive to the end you’ll be cheering.

If you’re captivated by the idea of spirit-travel through different worlds, feuding shamans who roam the Russian steppes in huts on animals’ legs, incomprehensible evil and equally astonishing forces of good – including an absolutely implacable heroine who makes The Terminator seem like a quitter – then check out ‘The Ghost Drum’.

[1amongstzeroes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in middle school (year 2k I believe) when I found this in the library at my school. This has been one of my favorite books ever since, introducing me to multiple POV's and an omniscient narration. The story was amazing as well. Today, I wouldn't think to pick something like this up and I hate that about myself, because this book set a path for my own writing.

[Sheenagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent children's book, which I somehow missed from my childhood reading (I would have loved it).

A short, relatively slight tale, with wonderful characters and fairytale feel. Rather like Lloyd Alexander or Susan Cooper (though less epic), if those had been based on Russian/Northern/Eastern European mythology rather than Celtic/Arthurian. There's witches, shamans, houses with chicken or cat's legs, a Czar in a tower, an evil Czaritza and the world of the dead. Highly recommended comfort reading.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book of all time. Be forewarned however- although it's a children's book and a fairy tale, it's quite dark. Wonderful, but dark.

[Courtney Johnston]

This was wonderful

It’s a fairytale based of Slavic folklore — deep snow, evil Czars, witches’ houses with chicken legs, spells, magical apprentices, shapeshifters and more.

It’s like a folktale in that character development is not the point (my emerging complaint with much current well-respected middle-grade fiction is that the characters are all good and worthy and don’t change). It’s not like a fairytale in that we’re given a lot of insight into the characters’ motivations and the machinations of the plot by way of a narrator. Not an arch, contemporary narrator though, full of asides — a wise animal one:

In a place far distant from where you are now grows an oak-tree by a lake.
Round the oak's trunk is a chain of golden links.
Tethered to the chain is a learned cat, and this most learned of all cats walks round and round the tree continually.
As it walks one way, it sings songs.
As it walks the other, it tells stories.
This is one of the stories the cat tells.

Each chapter is opened by the cat, circling the tree with its “hard button paws” and golden chain. And the writing is beautiful:

The scholar-cat tells its story to the chink of its golden chain.
Forget Chingis and her witch-mother for a little while (says the cat). But remember Kuzma, the harvester of ice-apples.
Best of all, remember the woman Marien and the baby Czarevich whose life she saved.
Remember how the baby's father, the fearful Czar Guidon, gave orders that the Czarevich was never to leave the tiny room in which he had been born - that tiny room at the very top of the Palace's tallest tower.
Now I shall tell how Safa Czarevich lived and grew in that little room, under the care of the slave-woman, Marien.

I loved this book. I was constantly surprised by it. The writing is lavish and sensorial. I couldn’t predict the ending.

[LudmilaM · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. It feels and reads like a fairy tale, heavily influenced by russian folklore, it's well written, dense narration in which every sentence matters. However given it is posing so much as a fairy tale, it fails to deliver the most classic feature of good vs. evil, in which both are clearly defined and the good overcomes the evil. But overall still an interesting read with few pearls of genuine wisdom throughout.

[JKR · Rating 4 out of 5]

In parts this reminded me of A Wizard of Earthsea. I felt it might have been better without the conceit of a “learned cat” telling the story, but the book definitely lived up to its intriguing plot summary and then some.

[Amber Scaife · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very cool and interesting children's/YA fantasy book that uses elements of Russian folklore. Evil Czars, a prince locked in a tower, a story-telling cat, good witches, and bad shamans. Think Howl's Moving Castle but make it Siberia and darker. I loved it.

[Nayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read and reread this book hundreds of times since i was a kid, i loved and still love it that much. It's a beautiful, timeless story of love, kindness and sacrifice. An all-time favourite ❤️

[Inky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reads as a Russian fable, and is a well written, polished tale. Quite grim in sections, but that is expected.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

(I don't think this is necessarily aimed at YA level but it certainly could be read by that age group.)

This book feels very strongly like a Russian folk tale. There are witches and shamans roaming about in Baba Yaga-style houses, animal transformations, wicked rulers and a talking cat (who happens to be the one telling the story). It really felt like a traditional story, so in this respect, I say it succeeded.

Unfortunately, probably BECAUSE it uses the framework and format of a traditional folk tale, it didn't suck me in like modern-day stories tend (or at least try) to do. There is very little dialog, and while I did pity the circumstances of some of the characters, I didn't feel like I knew much about any of them OTHER than their circumstances. Compare this to how well the reader knows, say, Sabriel, or Alanna, by the time even one book is over, and this story kind of falls flat.

That said, it's really a personal preference thing, and if you like folk tales you would probably like this book very much.

[Rita Lamb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable book, clearly based on folklore and full of the bleak wisdom of folktales - especially their view of the nature of the rich and strong.

It begins with a slave-woman giving birth to a daughter in the frozen depths of winter. A witch appears, asking for the child, promising to raise it as a shaman. The woman is afraid - the child is not hers but her master's - but she gives her baby anyway, hoping desperately it will have a life better than her own. The witch vanishes and the woman never learns more. Afterwards she's never sure if her child simply died, and she dreamed the witch. We're in a world of sudden death and bitter choices.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been stuck in the back of my head since I read it 20 years ago, and it's actually better than I remembered. Probably would be considered appropriative now, though. : / I think it's actually had some big effects on the kind of stories I write (notably on one of the novels I'm working on now), so it's a pretty important book for me.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice story. I loved how the author simplistically and poetically wove the narrative and enjoyed the backdrop of feudal Russia. There was too much unexplained "magic" for my taste, but a worthwhile read nonetheless.

[Katie Ruth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know this book is acclaimed and award-winning but I just couldn't get into it. I finished it, but this fantasy definitely wasn't for me. That being said, I adore Susan Price's Sterkarm Handshake series!

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eerie images from this book still linger - houses on chicken legs, spirits returning to their bodies after they've died, bears, snow.

[Matthew Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

didnt really like this book because it was boring

[Claudia Glazzard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story told in a folk tale style but somehow a unique way. This is one I'll definitely go back to again and again (the cat said).

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little strange, Especially for a children's book. Again a nice quick read though and entertaining.

[Ashlee Hints · Rating 5 out of 5]

My FIRST Favourite Book

[Daley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[Jodie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my favourite books as a child.

[Gwynn]

Interesting tale. Will read the other 3 books.

[Papillon]

10

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful!