The Ghost Library

by David Melling

Bo is a little girl who loves to read stories before bedtime. One evening, as she is reading an especially funny tale about a witch with stinky feet, all the lights go out. Before she can recover, a clammy hand grabs one end of her book. She closes her eyes and holds on tight to the other end. Bo and her story book are whisked away to a strange place where she has never been before. When she opens her eyes, she finds herself standing in the Ghost Library, a gigantic, spooky room filled with empty shelves. It isn't long before she meets the friendly ghosts who regularly visit this place. They're constantly looking for more good stories--but their shelves are always empty. Bo is a little girl whose head is filled with ideas. She dreams up the perfect way to help the ghosts fill their library with wonderful stories. David Melling's funny, highly-detailed, full-color illustrations complement his amusing tale. They include a cleverly extended three-panel illustration with a gatefold and three two-page spreads that tell Bo's story in purely pictorial images.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Books About Books, Ghosts, Fantasy, Halloween

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

David Melling grew up in London with various siblings and a selection of animals, including a dog. It took him a while to decide what he wanted to do, but he never stopped drawing. He worked as a cel renderer and background artist in several animation studios before he began illustrating children’s books. His work includes the Hugless Douglas series and The Kiss That Missed, which was short-listed for the Kate Greenaway Medal. To date he has created around 150 books in over thirty languages. David Melling lives in Oxfordshire, England, with his wife and two children.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to a little girl, some ghosts learn that there are ways - other than stealing books - to discover new stories.

A fine tale for book lovers, with fun illustrations by the author.

[Cheryl]

Kathryn makes it sound special.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bo is a little girl who loves reading. One night she goes to bed to read her favourite story and she gets taken away by ghosts who are trying to steal her book. She is taken to their library where all of the shelves are empty. The ghosts ask Bo to read them her story and she helps them create stories of their own to fill their library shelves and is given full membership for ever after.
The book is so wonderfully illustrated by David Melling who also wrote it. I particularly love the comic strip style pages of Bo's book as she is telling the story and when the ghosts are all creating their stories.
It is a lovely story to read and share with children who love spooky stories and reading.

[BrookesEducationLibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heart-warming book about a group of ghosts who love stories but have none of their own so borrow children's books for a while and then return them, until the night they borrow a book but a little girl hasn't let go and joins them in the ghost Library!

The illustrations are lovely and the story is cleverly told with stories told within the story itself, during these short tales they are portrayed through comic strips with no narrative - we do enjoy reading books through their pictures! Everyone reads a slightly different story don't you think?

[Lauren Drake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of a young girl called Bo who gets taken away by ghosts to the ghost library. The library is empty and the ghosts explain that they usually borrow children's book, read them a few times and then return them to the children. Bo read the ghosts her storybook using the voices in all the right places and the ghosts love it so much that they want her to read another - Bo explains that they can make their own stories. The new stories are told through a series of comic strips with no words and i liked how these told the story. By the end, the ghost library is full of storybooks that have been made up by Bo and the Ghosts.
The illustrations and the way that they tell a story without the need for words is really effective and especially useful for children who struggle with reading - could discuss what they think is being told through the pictures. This could be used as a whole class text or as a 1:1 in a ks1 classroom.
The words on the page are not written in straight lines and are instead written in different directions - this reminds me of authors such as Lauren Child where the text in her books is in a similar layout. I found that this made the book fun to read, alongside the flap to show how big the ghost library tower is.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bit of a surprise, a little odd, a little clever…. Ghosts steal (ahem, *borrow*) picture books from children because they don’t have any of their own and take the books back to The Ghost Library during the borrowing period before returning them. But today, young Bo holds on tight to the book she loves and gets transported to the Ghost Library, too. Her indignation soon turns to sympathy for the poor ghosts with their empty shelves and love of books and she set about finding a solution that involves her own imagination and storytelling skills. The illustrations are fun and show off a variety of styles of ghosts.

[Cathy Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

The little girl in this story is whisked away to a library owned by ghosts. They need stories so she tells the varied characters a story about her adventure coming to their library. The illustrations are a perfect demonstration of a storyboard. All the ghosts learn to use their imaginations, and the ghost library fills with stories. At one point the library was so tall that the book had a fold-up page to extend to the top of the tower. Very cute. Enjoy.

[Thomas Bell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too weird for my taste. The author tried to be clever with his different pictures of what ghosts looked like, but it was kind of dumb in my opinion. And the ghosts themselves were quite dumb as well - I was not impressed.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lu en français,Traduction de Christiane Duchesne. Une petite fille raconte des histoires a des fantomes, leur apprends a en crée, les aidant ainsi a remplir le propre bibliotheque. Y a des pages ou l'histoire est raconté par BD. Sympa.

[Shiruji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely cute and wonderful :D I would have loved reading this when I was a child!

[AD · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this fun story about some book-borrowing ghosts and a young girl called Bo. Great for exploring themes of reading, storytelling, and visual literacy with young readers.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 5 year old found this book very engaging.

[Eragone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bo es una niña a la que le gusta leer y con mucha imaginación. No sabrás si el cuento es fruto de la misma, o verdad. Será fácil empatizar con ella.

Un cuento interesante para los peques. No solo por que así les hagamos ver que la imaginación no es mala, si no que incluso verán que se pueden hacer amigos gracias a ella.

Esta edición es muy llamativa, por que brilla en la oscuridad y eso nos gusta a mayores y pequeños. ¿No? Bueno, quizás yo sea especial en ese aspecto. 🤣🤣

¿Te llama la atención? ¿Lo leerías?

[Anne-Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Ghost Library is a book about enjoying books and stories, and of making up your own stories. It involves effort on the part of the reader as there are two sections where the story is told in pictures so you have to make it up while you read it. There is one gigantic flap to show the tall tower where the library is (I would love to have that many book shelves!) and it’s like getting three stories in one with the stories within the story – these are drawn in different styles too so the book maintains interest on all sorts of levels – it has ghosts and witches and a little girl and books so is completely non gender-stereotyped too, in my opinion.

[Duane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great picture book for young children. Bo finds herself in the ghost library and then is asked to read a book to the friendly ghosts. The nice thing about this book is that it includes pages that have no words, so children can make up the story or understand certain parts of the story even if they can't read. Filled with great illustrations, it has a nice message and is a great enertaining book for all ages.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a kid-pleaser, from the theme of book-stealing ghosts to the double page fold-outs. Creative and fun, the design will keep kids glued to the story, and there is even a spread with wordless, graphic novel style illustrations. The ghosts are silly and funny looking, and all they want is story hour! A nice, not-scary choice for young ones on Halloween.

[Emkoshka · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of ghosts borrowing books from sleeping children to populate their empty library is a compelling concept, but I felt it was underdeveloped and too big for the simple and limited form of a picture book. The writing was very ho-hum.

[Mckinley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good idea for a story.

[Shallowreader VaVeros · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a delightful kids' read with empty bookshelves coming to life with story characters. I loved the glow in the dark book cover :)

[Othrpplsnapkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book with a great foldout. The cartoons make it hard for storytime, but it's pretty great. Encourages reading and writing.