Guest Reviewer: LISA BROWN
For Halloween, another one of my earliest favorites.
“Up in the attic of this little house there lived a little ghost. His name was Georgie.”
I believe this started my as-yet-unrealized childhood wish to sleep in an attic. Note the jaunty buttons on Georgie’s ghostly shroud.
“Every night at the same time he gave the loose board on the stairs a little creak”
This house is Victoriana at its best. It’s the home of Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker, and Georgie’s gentle nightly hauntings helped to lull them to sleep. However, when Mr. Whittaker fixed the creaks and squeaks in the house, Georgie began to feel unwanted and had to leave.
But he was unable to find a new home that suited.
This drawing always scared me, for some reason.
“…each house already had a ghost.”
Finally, Georgie ended up in a barn until the passage of time and extreme weather re-creaked the Whittakers’ house. Only then could he move back in and resume his spectral duties.
“And Mr and Mrs. Whittaker knew when it was time to go to sleep again.”
There is something chilling about a drawing of a little ghost standing over the unsuspecting, sleeping Whittakers. It definitely makes me think about ghosts, and what they are actually supposed to be: um, dead people. So is Georgie a little dead boy? So how did he die? Why is he haunting that house? And what’s with the buttons?
CURIOUS COMMENT: For more Halloween fun, see Lisa's new book, VAMPIRE BOY'S GOOD NIGHT
