Ghost Circus

Written by Adrienne Kress

Illustrated by Jade Zhang

Union Square Kids

978-1-4549-4829-2

256 pp.

Ages 9–13

August 2025 

 

When Casey, a living boy, finds himself in the stands of a ghost circus, he is confused, as is Creepy Girl, a ghost with hollow eyes, who finds him. He'd already had a weird day where the school bus driver didn't see him and his classmate Emily presented their project without him. Now he's at the circus, which is filled with ghost performers, and Creepy Girl, with a little friend called Polterghost, is trying to help him, though not understanding herself why a boy who is not dead can interact with the ghost world.

From Ghost Circus, written by Adrienne Kress, illustrated by Jade Zhang

Being the only ghosts who can leave the circus, Creepy Girl and Polterghost follow Casey as he heads home. There he finds his distraught parents and a clue that leads him to the hospital where Casey lays in a coma. But he cannot re-enter his body, though he tries. When Casey realizes the Headless Horseman is following him, he and his new friends return to the Ghost Circus  where the Horseman cannot enter. 

 

At the Ghost Circus, Creepy Girl introduces Casey to several performers, hoping they might help them. First, there is Madame Avenire, the fortune teller, who had always told Creepy Girl that she had a mission to help a lost child. 

In my living days I told people their future. Now I tell them their pasts. 

The living and the dead are the same in that way...never existing in the present. (p. 79)

From Ghost Circus, written by Adrienne Kress, illustrated by Jade Zhang

It's only when they speak with the Elephant, who reveals how he joined the circus and how it has evolved over time, that Casey and Creepy Girl realize what has been happening, who the Headless Horseman seeks, and what they must do.

While Ghost Circus is in essence a ghost story, it has greater depth to it. Both Creepy Girl and Casey are on the hunt for answers. Creepy Girl doesn't know who she was and why she cannot cross over while Casey wants to know if he is going to die because he can't re-enter his body. Both are immersed in fear for what has happened and what will happen. That fear pervades their attitudes in different ways. At the onset, Casey is rude, annoyed that Creepy Girl doesn't understand what he's feeling and that she doesn't have all the answers he needs. Creepy Girl, on the other hand, seems to be nonchalant about his situation, not understanding what's happening and why she's involved when she's not a part of his story. But with time, Creepy Girl begins to understand her mission and Casey sees that others have their own stories and fears. By seeing beyond themselves and helping others, the two with Polterghost, who always has a benevolence to others, gain in understanding and start to make things right. 

From Ghost Circus, written by Adrienne Kress, illustrated by Jade Zhang

It's been too long since I've reviewed an Adrienne Kress story, and I'm so pleased to review Ghost Circus, her debut graphic novel. (Her bibliography to date includes young adult novels like The Friday Society and Outcast, and middle grade series like The Explorer Society, Ticket to Ride and Bendy.) She does have a wonderful penchant for the fantastical and I'm seeing a little more creepiness in her stories, but it's not creepy. It's the kind that titillates and entertains and will engage young readers completely. While not a horror story, Ghost Circus has the supernatural elements that might evoke unease, especially when dealing with the ghosts—Creepy Girl has hollow eyes, there's a guy with a giant hole in his torso as if from a cannon ball, and the Headless Horseman is definitely one to fear—but never scares. Rather, Adrienne Kress and Ghost Circus make us think. They make us think about the Between, that space between living and crossing over; about those who take all our energy for themselves; and how by helping others we can do much to help ourselves.  

From Ghost Circus, written by Adrienne Kress, illustrated by Jade Zhang

Jade Zhang, a Toronto visual artist, keeps the chill of Adrienne Kress's story but she makes it playful and fresh with her choice of colours and softness of line and shape. Creepy Girl has creepy elements to her, as do most of the ghosts, especially when depicted in their blueness, but Creepy Girl generally looks like a naive girl with big eyes. And Polterghost is adorable. He's small and friendly and helpful. (See him try to give an apple to the Headless Horseman's horse in the illustration above.) Jade Zhang keeps the yucky for those characters that are truly vile. 

 

Though Adrienne Kress resolves Casey's story, and relatively happily, it looks like there will be a sequel to Ghost Circus. Casey tells Creepy Girl that "We'll figure out what's going on" (p. 247) and I foresee another "lively" story (pun intended) starring our new favourite trio of characters, perhaps to discover Creepy Girl's origin story. (I'll just be happy to call her something other than Creepy Girl.)

The Elevator Ghost

by Glen Huser

Illustrations by Stacy Innerst

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-426-8

168 pp.

Ages 7-12

August 2014

I do believe that this will be the year of scary stories, as I'm seeing a lot of anthologies of ghost stories, scary picture books and, here, scary stories embedded in a middle grade novel.  While some may like to keep these youngCanLit books for occasions at which getting scared is part of the experience e.g., at Halloween or camp fires, some readers love frightening themselves at least a little (and sometimes a lot!) in everything they read.  Hey, we all have favourite genres.  So, for those who enjoy a bit of a fright now and then, without going for all out horror, The Elevator Ghost by award-winning author Glen Huser will appease that hunger for trepidation.

As an assortment of children from the apparently haunted Blatchford Arms go trick or treating within the apartments' two towers, Carolina Giddle is driving there in her trinket-covered VW bug, with her pet tarantula, Chiquita, to become its newest resident.  Though Carolina doesn't know any of its living residents, she soon becomes a welcome addition, especially since her card lists her as "Experienced babysitter, mah-jong instructor and vegetarian caterer.  Will do light housekeeping and séances upon request." (pg. 29)

Carolina is first snatched up to babysit the Fergus twins, Dwayne and Dwight, whose pranking has lost them all prior babysitters in the building.  Though the boys try to pull a variety of pranks on her, Carolina barely acknowledges them, finally setting down to tell them a ghost story while they munch on bone rattlers in the light-less living room. Mesmerized by the story of a skeleton's foot and a couple of jokesters, the boys lose focus on their own antics.

She's similarly successful with other children in the building, including taming the night frights from the Croop children, the painting mischief out of one of the Lubinitsky girls and the tantrums from Angelo Bellini, 5. With her spine-chilling stories about ghosts, aliens and monsters and her miscellany of treats and props, Carolina wins over all the children, one family at a time.

However, Carolina has a few secrets she's not quite ready to share, though if anyone had been invited to join her for tea in the building's sunroom each evening, they'd have their own story to tell.  But the Halloween party she has for all the residents finally brings Carolina's own story to life, in a manner of speaking.

For the requisite fright that Halloween demands, The Elevator Ghost will fulfil the purpose eloquently, without terrifying younger readers.  Glen Huser has the dry wit that imbues the text with humour, thereby minimizing its scariness, but without turning the book into one that could only be classified as a funny read.  He has a light touch when it comes to spicing the story with evocative details, knowing when to add a touch of ridiculous imagery, or eerie characters, or wry dialogue.  Not surprising he's won the Governor General's Award for Children's Literature (for his book Stitches from Groundwood, 2003).  Glen Huser obviously knows what children like to read (he was a teacher and school-librarian) and what does and doesn't work, because he has all the right stuff to engage his young readers.  The trick for adults will be to wait until Halloween to share The Elevator Ghost so you won't need any other treats. Good luck with that one.

Haunted Canada: Ghost Stories

by Pat Hancock and Allan Gould

Illustrated by Andrej Krystoforski

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-2894-0

172 pp.

Ages 8-13

2014

Though most readers would think this a perfect read for Halloween (and I will be sure to add it to an October post on spooky youngCanLit reads), ghost stories are also the perfect choice for an end-of-night campfire, when the darkness has settled in, the quiet is heavy in the warm humid air, and the company is just a little wary of occasional unfamiliar sounds and shadows.  That's the time to bring out one of Scholastic Canada's Haunted Canada series books, like their newest Haunted Canada: Ghost Stories.

While all the stories include supernatural or paranormal elements, the basis for the tales are quite varied.  Some warn, some entertain, some explain, some scare. Many of the stories, like "The Sleeping Boy" and "Golden Eyes", have ghosts that appear for the purpose of keeping others safe, whether from fire, an avalanche or a flash flood.  In "Robber's Reward", a young girl helps to right an injustice.  Several provide cautionary themes against bullying and gossiping, such as in "A Boy's Best Friend" and "Spellbound".  And the final story in the book, "Life Guard", is truly frightening or would be if a boy hadn't been an attentive big brother.

The fifteen stories within are a little scary but not horrific, not the nightmare-inducing tales that teens and adults might enjoy.  These stories read more like retelling of eyewitness accounts, the kind that one person might tell by beginning with, "Did you hear that...?" and you might believe they actually happened.  Mind you, with ghost stories, how do you know they didn't? Something to think about when settling into that warm and cozy bed and you hear something go bump in the night.