There’s a Ghost in this House

Oliver Jeffers

HarperCollins, 2021

44pp., hbk., RRP $A29.99

 9780008298357

There is always something intriguing about opening a book that is sealed in plastic so you can’t browse its contents until it’s too late.  And with a title like There’s a Ghost in this House you wonder what is hidden inside that needs to be confined.

So it was with great trepidation that I opened this new release from Oliver Jeffers, with its peek-a-boo cover, particularly today of all days when we know that ghosts and ghouls are roaming the earth for their final time before heading one way or the other. Just what was I setting up? Would I be swamped by “a fraid of ghosts” that would haunt me and mine for ever?

But putting on my recently-discovered brave I answered the little girl’s invitation to enter the grand doors of this mysterious mansion that looks like it has come down through the ages, and helped her in her search for the ghost she had been told lived there. But what we found, or didn’t, will remain a mystery between us for this is one book that needs no further explanation.

Save to say, that it is one of the most engaging, cleverly designed books that I’ve read and the publishers were right to put that plastic seal on it! This is Oliver Jeffers at his best!