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The Unseen: Scary Stories
A collection of twenty-one short stories and poems about ghosts and other things supernatural by a variety of Canadian authors including Tim Wynne-Jones, Kit Pearson, Jean Little, Karleen Bradford, Janet Lunn, and L.M.Montgomery.
171 pages, Hardcover
First published November 26, 2002
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About the author
Janet Lunn
30 books35 followersJanet was born Janet Louise Swoboda on December 28, 1928 in Dallas, Texas, U.S.A, moved to Vermont when she was two and lived there until she was ten when the family moved to the outskirts of New York City. She came to Canada in 1946 to go to Notre Dame College in Ottawa and then to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. There she met and married Richard Lunn, a fellow student. She has lived in Canada ever since. Janet has five children, ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 1987.
"Those," she says, "are the bare bones of my life story. The part that's interesting to readers has to do with reading, writing and daydreaming which are all, in my case, one and the same." She calls herself a dedicated daydreamer and says she has been that, "almost from the moment I was born. Even before I could read I was dreaming up stories. The sound of the wind in the ancient pine tree outside my window in our old farmhouse accompanied all my childhood imaginings. When I was in my teens and living far from that beloved home, I began writing stories with the sound of that tree still singing in my head."
Years later, in Canada, when her children were in their school years, the Lunn family went to live in an old farmhouse at the edge of a bay on the north shore of Lake Ontario. "I loved that house, too, she says, "and I began writing stories about it and the people who might once have lived in it. The stories I made up about the Vermont house have long since vanished but the ones I wrote about the Ontario-house families are The Root Cellar, Shadow in Hawthorn Bay and The Hollow Tree."
Janet lives in Ottawa now in a small city house but, chances are, her stories will still reflect her love of the countryside and those old farmhouses.
"Those," she says, "are the bare bones of my life story. The part that's interesting to readers has to do with reading, writing and daydreaming which are all, in my case, one and the same." She calls herself a dedicated daydreamer and says she has been that, "almost from the moment I was born. Even before I could read I was dreaming up stories. The sound of the wind in the ancient pine tree outside my window in our old farmhouse accompanied all my childhood imaginings. When I was in my teens and living far from that beloved home, I began writing stories with the sound of that tree still singing in my head."
Years later, in Canada, when her children were in their school years, the Lunn family went to live in an old farmhouse at the edge of a bay on the north shore of Lake Ontario. "I loved that house, too, she says, "and I began writing stories about it and the people who might once have lived in it. The stories I made up about the Vermont house have long since vanished but the ones I wrote about the Ontario-house families are The Root Cellar, Shadow in Hawthorn Bay and The Hollow Tree."
Janet lives in Ottawa now in a small city house but, chances are, her stories will still reflect her love of the countryside and those old farmhouses.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 22, 2024
I've thought of the story Carrot Cake at least twice a year at daylight savings since reading this book as a child.
November 23, 2020
An interesting collection of haunted and sentimental stories, some with clear resolutions, others with open endings. A 3.5 .
October 12, 2016
A spooky little mix of Canadiana and nostalgia. I so enjoyed this book as a young reader, so when I saw it in a used bookstore recently I had to pick it up again.
May 18, 2019
Wonderfully creepy and unsettling, but in a way that's totally appropriate for middle-grade readers. And, while all of the stories had a spooky or ghostly theme, several of them were also quite sweet, especially L.M. Montgomery's short story The Return of Hester.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews