Babar and the Ghost

ISBN 0394879082 - I've never been a huge Babar fan, but I do like this book! It's a perfect Halloween title for little kids who only THINK they're ready for "scary stuff". Babar and his family go to Black Castle to picnic. When it begins to rain, they head indoors, where the kids joke about ghosts until, much to their surprise they meet a real one! Friendly and lonely, Baron Bardula plays with them until it's time to go home. After some pleading by the children, the baron agrees to go home with them, but it doesn't work out very well. Still, the kids have made a great new friend! Not scary, really, so it's a nice little book for the 6-8 age group it's intended for. The ghost is less scary than a ghost might be, and more of a prankster, and even those pranks are at the direction of Babar's children.

In this book, Babar and his family go to the haunted Black Castle for a picnic. But while they are there it starts to rain, so they have to go inside and wait for it to stop. As they were waiting, the children went and roamed around. While they were roaming around the castle, they ran into a ghost. At first they were scared, but the ghost told them he was a good ghost. They thought he was very cool so they decided that he should come home with them. The ghost told them that only children could see him, so they had some fun playing tricks on their parents. But finally, Babar got suspicious about what was going on and overheard his daughter talking to, and about, the ghost. So Babar got fed up and made it go back to the Black Castle where it came from. The children were sad, but they knew that they could go and visit the ghost any time. Then the next day Babar asked them if they wanted to go back to Black Castle for another picnic. The children were so happy. The were going to get to see their ghost friend again. I liked this book as a child because I always thought that stuff with ghosts, haunted houses and stuff like that were interesting. My favorite character in this book was Zepher the monkey, he was kind of funny. So if you think you are interested in this kind of story, you should read it.

The Babar series is just wonderful for beginning readers. There are many qualities that parents will like- the cultural aspects, messages about responsibility, family, and community, as well as engaging, but not-too-complex plots for youngsters. My daughter particularly likes this one- it has just enough mystery and intrigue to interest her without confusing her.