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The 5th Armada Ghost Book
All kinds of ghosts... Eleven eerie tales to make you shiver with delight!
Tremble in the shadow of THE HAUNTED TOWER, gallop through the night with THE SKELETON RIDER, learn the dread secret of the SLEEPING BONES...
Who was the veiled lady on the train? Whose blood stained the castle moat? Do you dare find out?
Tremble in the shadow of THE HAUNTED TOWER, gallop through the night with THE SKELETON RIDER, learn the dread secret of the SLEEPING BONES...
Who was the veiled lady on the train? Whose blood stained the castle moat? Do you dare find out?
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
15 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 24, 2015
I was given this book of ghost stories in about 1988, when I was four and first started at school in England. (Oh, okay - I pinched it from the school library and then the teacher said I could keep it. In my defence, it was a very small school, and they did frequently give away library books if you found one you really liked.) For the last twenty years at least, it's been sitting in a box in the attic, a distant memory. So it was fun to dust it off and read it again, as I only remembered a few of the tales.
The Mourning Brooch was a nice, gentle start - spooky enough to interest adults, not so scary that kids would be scared to sleep afterwards. The Skeleton Rider, which was the story I remembered best from this volume, was much scarier, and sent a chill down even my 30-year-old spine. Sleeping Bones had a bit too much schadenfreude for me - revenge / justice stories are not to my taste - but I imagine kids would like it.
Humblepuppy was lovely, sweet and sad. I really like Joan Aiken's familiar style of writing, too. The Captain's Yacht was a nice read - I do enjoy stories of ghosts coming back to help the living. MacAuslan's Castle was probably the tale that would have appealed most to the adult me, had I not been reading the book for nostalgia's sake - I was quite impressed with the style of storytelling, particularly the way the poem was woven through the narrative as Margaret deciphered it.
Paget was one of my favourites as a child, and I enjoyed it now, short though it was - I'm always a sucker for make-it-right stories, and the thought of a small child being separated from its parents gets to my heart as much at thirty as it did at six or seven. The Haunted Tower was, I think, my absolute favourite as a 7 and 8-year-old, and it's still a good read - I think that the image of those semaphore arms silhouetted against a sunset sky, moving on their own with no (living) help, is one of the most striking images from the book.
Uncle Jim and The Old Greenhouse were nice, peaceful tales about encounters with deceased family members. The Last Earl I didn't find spooky until the end - but the thought of opening my holiday photos up (if we still had photo prints to open these days) and finding that the lake shines blood-red, is a chilling one.
All in all, it was a fun book to read. It is a bit dated in places, but nothing major, although I do wish that there was a wider variety of names - with every third girl being named Jane, it was sometimes hard to remember what story I was on. There wasn't anything really spectacular here, but nothing dire either. Without knowing the demographic that it was intended for, it's hard to rate it, but I'm guessing that 7 to 8-year-olds would enjoy these tales. Probably not recommended for under-sevens, unless they're made of particularly tough stuff - I remember having nightmares after The Skeleton Rider in particular.
The Mourning Brooch was a nice, gentle start - spooky enough to interest adults, not so scary that kids would be scared to sleep afterwards. The Skeleton Rider, which was the story I remembered best from this volume, was much scarier, and sent a chill down even my 30-year-old spine. Sleeping Bones had a bit too much schadenfreude for me - revenge / justice stories are not to my taste - but I imagine kids would like it.
Humblepuppy was lovely, sweet and sad. I really like Joan Aiken's familiar style of writing, too. The Captain's Yacht was a nice read - I do enjoy stories of ghosts coming back to help the living. MacAuslan's Castle was probably the tale that would have appealed most to the adult me, had I not been reading the book for nostalgia's sake - I was quite impressed with the style of storytelling, particularly the way the poem was woven through the narrative as Margaret deciphered it.
Paget was one of my favourites as a child, and I enjoyed it now, short though it was - I'm always a sucker for make-it-right stories, and the thought of a small child being separated from its parents gets to my heart as much at thirty as it did at six or seven. The Haunted Tower was, I think, my absolute favourite as a 7 and 8-year-old, and it's still a good read - I think that the image of those semaphore arms silhouetted against a sunset sky, moving on their own with no (living) help, is one of the most striking images from the book.
Uncle Jim and The Old Greenhouse were nice, peaceful tales about encounters with deceased family members. The Last Earl I didn't find spooky until the end - but the thought of opening my holiday photos up (if we still had photo prints to open these days) and finding that the lake shines blood-red, is a chilling one.
All in all, it was a fun book to read. It is a bit dated in places, but nothing major, although I do wish that there was a wider variety of names - with every third girl being named Jane, it was sometimes hard to remember what story I was on. There wasn't anything really spectacular here, but nothing dire either. Without knowing the demographic that it was intended for, it's hard to rate it, but I'm guessing that 7 to 8-year-olds would enjoy these tales. Probably not recommended for under-sevens, unless they're made of particularly tough stuff - I remember having nightmares after The Skeleton Rider in particular.
March 11, 2023
An easy book to read in one sitting. There were some good stories in there I liked the ghost puppy story.
I also liked The Sleeping Bones story, I wouldn't say they were scary but still enjoyable.
I also liked The Sleeping Bones story, I wouldn't say they were scary but still enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews