Ghosts

The Eerie Series

by Seymour Simon

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, you'll be spellbound by these nine supposedly true tales from the spirit world. Captivating creatures include the Horror of Berkeley Square, a demon that literally scares people to death, and White House specters of former presidents and first ladies. Suitable for readers of all ages. Narrated by Anthony Call (Star Trek, The Twilight Zone).

44 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Seymour Simon, whom the NY Times called "the dean of [children's science:] writers," is the author of more than 250 highly acclaimed science books (many of which have been named Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children by the National Science Teachers Association).

Seymour Simon uses his website, SeymourSimon.com, to provide free downloads of a wealth of materials for educators, homeschoolers and parents to use with his books, including 4-page Teacher Guides for all 26 of his Collins/Smithsonian photo essay books. The site provides multiple resources for kids writing book reports or wanting to explore the online Science Dictionary, and also features the Seymour Science blog highlighting current science news. Educators and families are encouraged to sign up to receive the monthly newsletter from SeymourSimon.com to stay abreast of the latest materials that Seymour Simon is introducing to enrich the reading experience.

He taught science and creative writing in elementary and secondary schools and was chair of the science department at a junior high school in the New York City public school system before leaving to become a full-time writer. "I haven't really given up teaching," he says, "and I suppose I never will, not as long as I keep writing and talking to kids around the country and the world."

Seymour Simon is also a creator and the author of a series of 3D books and a series of Glow-in-the-Dark Books for Scholastic Book Clubs, a series of leveled SEEMORE READERS for Chronicle Books, and the EINSTEIN ANDERSON, SCIENCE DETECTIVE series of fiction books. His books encourage children to enjoy the world around them through learning and discovery, and by making science fun. He has introduced tens of millions of children to a staggering array of subjects; one prominent science education specialist described Simon's books as "extraordinary examples of expository prose."

Seymour Simon has been honored with many awards for his work, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Lifetime Achievement Award for his lasting contribution to children's science literature; the New York State Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature; the Hope S. Dean Memorial Award from the Boston Public Library for his contribution to children's science literature; The Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Award for Non-fiction; the Jeremiah Ludington Award for his outstanding contribution to children's nonfiction; the Empire State Award for excellence in literature for young people; and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Forum on Children's Science Books.

In a recent interview Simon was asked if he ever thinks of retiring. "I seem to be working faster and harder than ever. I absolutely don't feel any urge to sit back and look at what I've done. The only things that I'm thinking about are things I'd like to do in the future. I'm planning and doing and continuing to write. It's what I love to do. I remember a story about an anthropologist going to talk to a tribe and he asked them what was their word for "work." Their response was they have no word for work. Everybody does the things that they do in their life. I love that response. I don't differentiate between work and play. Everything I do is something that I enjoy doing - the writing, the research and everything else."

Seymour Simon writes and photographs nature from his hilltop home in Columbia County in upstate New York, where he lives with his wife Liz Nealon.

You can follow Seymour on Facebook and on Twitter, as well as on his website, which offers free, downloadable Teacher Guides to his books for educators, parents and homeschoolers, as well as the popular Seymour Science Daily Blo

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really all that creepy (and I guess I am to a certain point rather grateful for this, since too much of the latter, since overly exaggerated creepiness and uncanniness does tend to much too often give me quite vivid nightmares and feelings of terror), but I have nevertheless not all that much enjoyed Seymour Simon’s 1979 Ghosts.

For one, although too much vividly described horror does tend to make many ghost stories too much for me, I also still want these tales (if or when I happen to encounter them) to be both engagingly written and imaginative. And well and in my humble opinion, for NONE of the nine ghost accounts included in Ghosts have I actually found Seymour Simon’s text to be sufficiently interesting and engaging, but majorly superficial and rather boring, with not even the many depictions of gruesome occurrences, of death and destruction getting much more than a tediously yawning ho-hum reaction from me.

And for two, the combination of fact and fiction in Ghosts, l do find this kind of annoying and confusing, as though Seymour Simon really cannot or does not want to make up his mind as to whether his nine ghost accounts are true or not, therefore making his stories neither believable or not believable, making his tales at best pretty wishy-washy (and yes, I certainly would prefer the stories of Ghosts to either just be tales considered to be true or ones considered to be fictional and legendary and not this rather problematic and strange mixture of neither one or the other).

So would I recommend Ghosts? Well, not really, because I personally do not think that the nine featured stories are either all that interesting or all that engaging (and the confusing mish-mash of potential truth and potential fantasy really does make me consider Seymour Simon’s text as at best problematic and quite majorly lacking), and that there are so so so many superior books on "true" ghost stories out there.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me think about how scary parnormal experiences can be when it said '' Ghosts are the souls of dead people wandering among the living. Sometimes the ghosts are said to come back often.''

The writer is teaching us about how ghosts can affect you and how scary they can be because if you ever encounter a ghost you will know what not to do and you can learn about how ghosts can just come randomly.

In my opinion, ghosts can be dangerous it's good to know what can you do if it ever happens to you because these were real life stories.

[Victor Del Rio · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite and scariest childhood books.

[Hyzie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't a terrible book, but it was not particularly well-written, nor did I find it scary.

I'll admit I'm out of the target audience (or at least target age-range) for this book, but I feel like I went in with pretty low expectations. I expected the writing to be below my level and the stories to be not exactly Stephen-King-scary, but I feel like this would have disappointed me even as a child, when I was devouring any kind of scary ghost-related book I could get my hands on.

The stories were supposed to be true, and I won't speak to that because all ghost stories are supposed to be true, that's the fun part of them, but they didn't feel real. The writing was clinical (I was not surprised to discover he wrote a lot of children's science books) and not descriptive enough to scare. It felt like the author couldn't decide whether to write it as a plain facts history of these hauntings or as a book intended to scare, and thus wavered between the two and fell short of both quite badly.

What saved this from being a total disaster was the choice of hauntings, which were well-selected and included some I had not heard of, which is always nice (the number of times I've re-read stories about the same ghosts is kind of annoying). It was a quick read, however, and introduced me to a few new stories I might track down more information on, so it was not a complete waste.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok. More ghost stories and not really any history or folklore.

[Sidney J. Dragon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A favorite from childhood

I first read this back in the mid 70s and it still holds up. Definitely a great read and good introduction to ghost stories for younger readers.