As we enter spooky season, it might be helpful to identify the haunts of our town as threatening or friendly. Luckily, we now have a very helpful guide on ghosts! Not only do we learn how to make friends with a ghost with this manual, but also how to become friends for life. A heartwarming, sweet, poignant, and entertaining guidebook, Rebecca Green not only makes readers giggle, but also helps us understand the full meaning and value of true friendship. Rebecca Green is an illustrator, painter and make-believe maker who spends her days (and sometimes nights) illustrating for children's and young adult books, magazines and galleries. While she would not describe herself as brave, she loves all things spooky and mysterious. How to Make Friends with a Ghost is her first picture book. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. You can find Rebecca at myblankpaper.com.
What do you do when you meet a ghost? One: Provide the ghost with some of its favorite snacks, like mud tarts and earwax truffles. Two: Tell your ghost bedtime stories (ghosts love to be read to). Three: Make sure no one mistakes your ghost for whipped cream or a marshmallow when you aren't looking! If you follow these simple steps and the rest of the essential tips in How to Make Friends with a Ghost, you'll see how a ghost friend will lovingly grow up and grow old with you. A whimsical story about ghost care, Rebecca Green's debut picture book is a perfect combination of offbeat humor, quirky and sweet illustrations, and the timeless theme of friendship.
I don't normally review children's books, so I was super excited to read and review How to Make Friends with a Ghost. I heard about this book on the podcast, 88 Cups of Tea, on the episode where Yin Chang was in conversation with Rebecca Green. You can find that episode here.
The format of this book is inspired by a traditional guidebook or information manual, which works so well! It was super fun to flip through the pages, and to feel like if I ever became friends with a ghost, I could open this book for helpful instructions on how to take care of the ghost, activities to complete, and foods to make for the ghost. There's even a fun (and silly!) recipe for Floating Spaghetti and Mudballs that I would definitely try, if a ghost found me. Some other fun parts of the form of this novel is a diagram of ghosts (so you know if you find a ghost, you know it's an actual ghost), some important dos and don'ts, and references to external texts. I particularly enjoyed the headings (Ghost Basics, Ghost Care, and Growing Together) which were all further separated in subheadings (Introduction, Dos and Don'ts, Feeding, Activities, Bedtime, Hiding Spots, Hazards, Growing Up and Growing Old). To say the least, this guide was very comprehensive, and covered every question, every thought, and every worry about ghost care and ghost friendship. This attention to detail really brought the book together, and made everything that I will write about below even more special and sweet.
Even though this book's form is as an instruction manual, I would argue that there's plot to be found and analyzed! The growth of the friendship between our female lead and the ghost is definitely a large part of that plot. The book follows this female lead as she encounters a ghost -- the likeliness of the occurrence, what it means, and how to go from there. When the girl leads her ghost home, she begins to make a place in her life for her ghost. By making the ghost food, giving it a place to sleep, and playing and dancing with the ghost, it is clear the two become close friends. Over the years, they learn tips and tricks so that the ghost stays safe from ignorant, un-ghost-educated folks, like staying away from food and people who need tissues. It is when we reach the Growing Together section where the book's themes really come to the forefront. Sure, all the other tips are fun, silly, and important, but the book is how to be friends with a ghost, and what that means: forever friendship. It is heartwarming and fun to see the girl grow up into a woman while still keeping her ghost by her side. All the way till the end, the girl and the ghost are faithful best friends, and it truly teaches such a valuable lesson about the power and importance of friendships.
There's really no other way to say it: the writing was so fun! The story and themes are just so cute, and I know I could pull this book out at any time if I ever needed a smile. Green is so humorous within the writing, and utilizes the full power of her images to compliment her text. My favorite parts about the writing include how she uses "external texts" to support what she says about ghost discovery, food choices, and cleaning tips when things go a bit awry. The word choice has to be deliberate in a children's book, based on the young audience at hand, and I think the word choice was well done. There were no too complicated words, and everything that was meant to be silly was silly, and everything meant to be sweet was sweet. Green also utilized underlining, punctuation, and footnotes to give us additional resources, and to complete and clarify thoughts. The text was special because it was refreshing on each page, thoughtful, and consistently silly and entertaining.
Rebecca is clearly a talented illustrator. Her images and the text perfectly compliment each other. I love the muted colors of the book, because it really feels like a book I'd curl up and read in the fall when the leaves start to change colors. The images also really tie together the instruction manual form, as they show us how to take care of the ghost just as much as the words do. I loved how the images at the beginning conveyed the nervousness and hopefulness of the girl and ghost as they first met each other, and how that timidness grows into comfort as they begin to have fun with one another. By the end of the book, the images become really tender, depicting the great life they had together throughout the years. I wish we could have seen more moments between the girl and the ghost as they grew up together, but I'm glad we got the sweet images we did in the moments that were depicted. The spooky details in all the images, like spiderwebs, stars, and even a jack-o-lantern were all so perfect in bringing the story to life.
If you loved this informative and sweet guide, then stay tuned for more work from Rebecca! Currently, she is working on a series of her own picture books, as well as technique books for other illustrators.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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