Never Say Boo - Robin Pulver

Illustrated by Deb Lucke
Holiday House, 2009
$16.95
32 pages
Rating: 2.5
Endpapers: black with dancing skeletons (there are no skeletons in the story, only human kids and one ghost....)

This book has a silly premise - that ghosts walk around like humans, living in haunted houses and going to school. In this story, Gordon, a ghost, has moved with his parents across town and must now go to a closer school. He is certain that kids will be scared of him because he will be the only ghost at this new school. At his old school, all the kids had been ghosts. And he knew how hard it was to make friends.

The first thing that happens is that his teacher, although she is expecting him, is still so frightened that she passes out. When she comes to she tries to assure all the kids that everything is all right - but the day continues badly for Gordon. All the questions the teacher asks have BOO somewhere in the answer, and he knows that his BOO is really scary, so even though he knows the answers, he doesn't dare contribute. Then at lunch his mom has packed scary surprises in his lunchbox, so the kids are all weirded out. But then something happens that makes him a hero and he instantly becomes everyone's best friend.

Okay. I don't know. Just didn't do it for me, although there are some great words used in the book. And some fun word play.

I also like the illustrations and the endpapers. Lots of black - where white would normally be. Although the story has nothing to do with Halloween (nothing to do with trick-or-treating, witches, pumpkins, etc) this would be the time to share it. So it has it's place as a not-so-scary story about not-scary-at-all ghosts. I guess.

Robin Pulver's website.
It doesn't look like Deb Lucke has her own website, but see some of her artwork here.