Ghost Book, a graphic novel that’ll immediately go to the forever bookshelf

It has been a long time since I’ve been so engrossed in a graphic novel. Ghost Book by Remy Lai is a graphic novel that is utterly putdownable. That is not a real word. However, there needs to be a word that book reviewers use every once in a rare while to describe a book that upends their senses and makes them stop what they’re doing. For me it was my planning period when I should’ve been getting papers ready for a group of high school students. I needed a break so I started reading Ghost Book and then 30 minutes later I stopped.

During that time I was mentally locked in a reading cavern that I had never experienced. Two times during that period I did stop, but that’s just because I momentarily forgot where I was. It’s not that I was sleepy either. The repair people had just cleaned the coils to the air conditioning unit above the room and it was much colder than usual and smelled like lemon cleaner. Lemon-scented band room aside, I was seated in one of the risers reading Ghost Book and slightly miffed at myself for not reading it sooner. You will be too, except minus the aroma of cleaning stuff.

The snippet on the back of Ghost Book will hook those who are averse to a good literary time. Twelve years ago, the boy and the girl lived. But one was supposed to die. There’s a bigger paragraph that jumps a little bit into hungry ghosts and the current spectral mood of July Chen’s school. It’s also accompanied by three very effective drawings of ghosts, yokai, and fire-breathing people that are most certainly no living.

Since she was a young girl July has been able to see ghosts. She’s a typical elementary school student in that she’s clever and has a quick wit, but all of her classmates don’t seem to notice her. July is not dead it’s just that they don’t find her memorable. It’s Hungry Ghost Month when the spirits are more prevalent and feast on the souls of the weak, recently departed or the sick. The kids at school are goofing around on a bridge trying to summon a ghost when July sees a kid ghost who just might need help. Unfortunately, their summoning also brings forth a bigger, nastier, puss-oozing ghost that’s much eviler.

There’s a great, age-appropriate sense of evil and scariness in Ghost Book. Upper elementary students will effortlessly read it and be enthralled, but not too scared about the ghosts and haunting in the book. It also does an excellent job in setting up the key players in the underworld scene. By the seventh page readers will understand the history that happened twelve years ago that set up July’s destiny, shaped her father’s beliefs and William, the friendly ghost that makes its presence known on the bridge.

The pacing and effective storytelling that happens in Ghost Book is remarkable. It establishes multiple characters in the underworld, lots of living characters, two disparate worlds, and creates a story that is completely understandable. Not only is this a story that upper elementary audiences will understand, they’ll feel the pain and frustration of the characters. They will laugh out loud when the ghosts want more dumplings. They’ll squirm just a little bit when the ghosts get a little disgusting. William’s proclivity to get himself into near-death situations keeps rearing its head will urge those same readers will fight back the need to say “look out” aloud. 

The storytelling that happens in Ghost Book is fabulous. Its attention to just the right details is one that many graphic novels do not capture. This is the goldilocks of storytelling in that it’s not too much or too little, it’s just right. There’s also a palpable evil that many books don’t get correct. The ghosts are strong in this one, from the creepy, sharp-toothed ghost face on the cover to the long-necked yokai with a couple of strands of spaghetti hair. These are the ghosts that middle-elementary kids and older want to draw and can see in their mind’s eye but are beyond their artistic abilities.

Furthering the balance in the story is how it paces the humor, heart, and action. It never gets too emotional, despite its strong emotional story. It never gets too funny, despite the dozens of jokes and visual gags that make you laugh out loud. Ghost Book also never loses its focus and becomes challenging to follow. This is great and it’s a graphic novel that is not just for Halloween time. Simply because it has “ghost” in the title doesn’t mean that it’s relegated to September through October reading. This is a great example of something that’s thought of as being pigeonholed into one time period and easily crosses over into any time reading.

Ghost Book is from Remy Lai and is available on Henry Holt and Company, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group.

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