The amber eyes in the cat candle from this post reminded me of The Ghost Next Door by Wylly St. John, a book I read when I was 12 years old. In it, a girl named Miranda spends a summer visiting her artistic aunt, Judith, and together they make owl figurines with glass eyes. Miranda drowns in Judith’s backyard pond shortly after hiding the owl for safe keeping, and the owl is never found. When years later Miranda’s half-sister comes to visit the aunt, all signs point to the ghost-child returning to communicate with the sibling who has no idea she ever existed.
The book is from 1981, possibly 1971, and 26 years later I still think about it every time I see an owl figurine, or any figurine for that matter, with glass eyes. The reviewers on Amazon echo my sentiment: I never forgot that book.� Can you blame me with that cover? It’s equal parts beautiful and horrifying.
Did you read this book as a child? Is there a book from your childhood you still think about?
That book looks so familiar, but I was graduating from high school in 1980 so maybe I am thinking of a book like it? I still think about many books I read long ago, such as the Anne of Green Gables series. It was fun to introduce my daughter to the books I loved when she got old enough.
Yikes! I wouldn’t have touched that book. I will never forget The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids (we had a record to go with the book). I won’t open the door for strangers to this day.
“From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”. It was about two siblings hiding for days in a museum in New York (the Met?) and ultimately solving a mystery.
I remember that one too, it was very good. When my kids were about 11 and 12 I found a copy in a used book store for them too.
in 6th grade i went through an agatha christie phase. i read mystery after mystery. then i proceeded to write my own mystery about a cat who goes to europe with his family in a basket that the daughter carries around. it was loosely based on my own family trip to europe (without our cat). i haven’t thought about this in years! too funny.
A Wrinkle in Time and The Westing Game
I always think of ‘The Wonder Story of Henry Sugar’ story by Roald Dahl. It’s actually a series of short stories and they are very smart and super creative. I’ve been wanting to re-design the cover for years. I should do that as a pet project, because no one would pick up the book as it is now, the cover is ridiculous and doesn’t reflect the magic that lies inside. The Henry Sugar story makes me dream of a home with a large library filled with leather bound books and the chance discovery of a tome that will change my life, sigh…
http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-Story-Henry-Sugar/dp/0141304707
P.S. Sorry for writing a novel but you asked….
I adore Roald Dahl. The BFG was and is one of my favorites.
Oh, sure. Suggest a classic author of literature like Dahl while I’m waxing on about cheesy 70s ghost stories. ;)
A Wrinkle in Time
I just recently found it that it’s a 3-book series. I need to hit my library this weekend!
Also, Jane Eyre. It was my favorite book all the way until high school.
Oh man, I haven’t read that book but I want to. More importantly, I have so many books I’ve read that give me vivid memories.
One in particular that comes to mind with your book was from one of my magazines as a kid. It may have been 3-2-1 Contact or something else, but anyways, they did a Ghost Story contest. One of the winners was this amazing short story about a girl who lives by a river and loves to hang out by it. She sees a ghost by the river and after doing some research, finds out it’s this girl that died on a specific date by drowning. So she decides to help release it by meeting on the anniversary of the death. It’s at night and she goes out and sees the girl slip into the river and be swept by her. So she reaches down and grabs her. The girl’s eyes turn red and suddenly, she’s in the river now. Their places are switched and the ghost is freed…but replaced by the main character, who now has to wait for someone else to come by.
I totally don’t mind “ruining” it, since who knows where it actually is anymore, but that story has always stuck so strongly in my mind whenever any ghost comment is made.
Spooky! I love it! OMG I would have been up for months after reading that. Come to think of it, I’ll probably be thinking about it tonight, too. I’m a total wuss when it comes to scary stories!
I was trying to go through two large containers of books, some from when I was in elementary school, and had to stop. The thought of getting rid of them actually made me sad. I remember taking dollars worth of pennies to the teacher with my Scholastic book order (do they have that in California?) and I still have those books. I had them in my classes when I taught and I have this insane idea that my kids will one day read them. They are 3 and 4 years old.
And you thought you were nerdy.
I totally loved that book as well. It was funny to see it here because although I remember it well- especially those eyes- I would not have remembered the title.
Oh, I didn’t remember the name of this book. I did the world’s longest string of keywords on Google. I found this website where the site owner considers it a challenge to figure out the titles of old books we might have read as kids. Someone had already asked about this one and when I googled the name and title he/she suggested: BAM. Once I saw the cover I knew this was it.
This is a post I adore! I’ve been an avid reader since forever. There are so many books that I’ve read that have stuck with me.
Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy (1985) (LOVE IT!)
Witch by Christopher Pike (1990)
Along with many, many more of which I can’t think of right off the top of my excited head.
The Ghost Next Door sounds really familiar and chances are I probably read it. That’s my genre of choice. I also read a book when I was younger, I can’t remember the name but the word Unicorn was in the title (even though it wasn’t about unicorns). All I can remember is that it was a thriller, the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice played a big part in the story and there was a freaky boy name Toady? Toddy? Something like that. I’ve done lots of searches for it, but have never found anything. The only conclusion I can draw is that I imagined it LOL.
Kendra–do the string search that I did. I’m sure you’ll end up on the site I was on. If you’re going to find the name, it will be on that site.
Hello! I just happened upon your post. The book you’re talking about is called “On That Dark Night” by Carol Beach York.
“Wait Till Helen Comes” by Mary Downing Hahn was one of the first creepy stories I ever read as a kid- and it’s still in print.
And Alvin Schwartz’s “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” still creeps me out- the images in the book have stayed with me and I still don’t like to look at them (the stories were just retellings of old campfire stories, including the one “Wait Till Helen Comes” is based on, it’s the images that get you).
They’re making “Wait Till Helen Comes” into a movie!
I was TOTALLY going to talk about “Wait till Helen Comes” I must have been in 3rd or 4th grade when I read it and was TERRIFIED. I couldn’t sleep for a week.
Now I have to google “Wait til Helen Comes Home.” Just the title sounds scary!
You didn’t read this? Oh, Jules. DO! I LOVED it.
I vividly remember my third grade teacher reading “Sideways Stories from Wayside School” by Louis Sachar to my class, and I LOVED it. Each chapter was about a different teacher or student at Wayside School– 20 years later, I can still tell you about my favorite chapters (“Maurecia” and “Mrs. Zarves”). I actually ran across an old copy at a local library’s discarded book sale, and I’ve been reading it aloud to my class. My kids love it as much as I did.
Oh! And I remember her reading “Tikki Tikki Tembo”, the Chinese folk tale about the little boy with the insanely long name, and “The Mitten”, the Ukranian folk tale about all the animals squeezing into a single mitten to keep warm.
I also remember the books my grandmother used to read to me over and over when I was very little: “Pettranella” by Betty Waterton and “The Courtship of the Yonghy Bonghy Bo” by Edward Lear. I can even picture some of the pages in my mind. I think those stories have stuck with me as long as they have because I was so enchanted by the illustrations.
Erin ~
My son’s second grade teacher read the first Wayside School book to his class this past fall. He loved them so much we checked the others out of the library and read them together at home.
The eyes with LOVE in them!!! We read this aloud to each other at girl scout camp. I literally have goosebumps now just thinking about it more than 25 years later. I’ve been enjoying your posts for months, but you just got me to comment!!! Thanks!
YES!!!! The eyes with LOVE in them!!!
The book that has stayed with me the longest is “Go Dog, Go … ” by PD Eastman. “Do you like my party hat?” “No, I do not like your hat!” HA! Hahahahaha!
Okay, maybe you had to be there …
I also loved the Value Tales books … I think they sparked my love of history and research right from the beginning.
Everything Roald Dahl scared and fascinated me as a kid and I must’ve read The Witches 10,000 times. But the book that I think about at least once a day was Julie Andrews’ Mandy. I wanted (still do) so badly to live in that magical cottage she described.
Whenever I was sick, I would lie feverish in bed and read Mandy.
That or Gus, the Scholastic novelization of the Disney movie about the donkey who played football. So much for good taste.
Island of the Blue Dolphins and The Witch of Blackbird Pond have always stuck with me.
Island of the Blue Dolphins is one that I loved too.
Was Stump the Bookseller the website you went to? What a great site for information on children’s books! The Witch’s Cove and Andrew Henry’s Meadow have some of my brain cells permanently dedicated to them. Lupper, anyone?
Thanks for reminding me of the Island of the Blue Dolphins. The heroine was so resourceful in that book. Also the Boxcar Children.
“Tuck Everlasting” – and then they made it into a movie which was even better. Such a wonderful book!
Hi Jules,
I am the great-niece of Wylly Folk St. John and this was one of my favorites of all of the books written by her. I loved the book so much so that I named my daughter Miranda to honor my aunt who was very dear to me.
I’ve written a bit about my aunt, Wylly Folk St John and will attach a link to couple of those posts. There are more on my website if you have an interest and thanks so much for sharing your thoughts about a special book that meant a lot to me as well.
http://giftsofthejourney.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/love-in-a-box/
http://giftsofthejourney.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/life-changes-family-reunions/
I am so pleased to see you enjoyed her writing.
The Secret World of Og by Pierre Burton is a book I loved in my childhood and found a copy of to read to my children when they were young. Also The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink and The Borrowers by Mary Norton are memorable stories from my childhood. The wrinkle in time books gave me night mares when i was little and I loved James and the Giant Peach. The Outsiders, 1984, A Handmaid’s tale, The Chrysalids and Brave New World are some of the books from my early teens that really stood out to me as memorable.
OMG I would read that book over and over when i was a kid i have recently tried to find it. with no luck. that book was amazing for me at 9.
Found your site while looking for a cheaper copy of this book. I owned the version on your page when I was younger but the one I read at my school library had the cover below. It came out in the seventies. I never forgot this book. The tragedy of the deceased granddaughter and the step-sister desperate for love and attention. Wylly Folk St. John incorporated real life trauma well. Uncle Robert’s Ghost was equally tragic. I actually remember finding these books more mature than a lot of the stuff in the elementary fiction section.
If it was in the supernatural fiction category, I read it. And now I want a copy of the book I read several times a year for my girls.
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/c8/04/40c112bb9da09effe5c2c010.L._SX120_.jpg
I love this book! I used to read it over and over in the 70’s and 80’s. I too, wanted to name my daughter Miranda. Instead, I used Miranda for an online name. I also loved the illustrations. This is one of the books that has mentally stayed with me through the years. It’s funny, I found your website a few days ago while searching for something. I found it again today while searching for The Ghost Next Door.
I want to thank you.. I think about The Ghost Next Door very often. I read it when I was about 10 and fell in love with it, I am now 40 lol. I did a search for it today to get the author’s name and found there was a book by this name done by Goosebumps. I was getting frustrated ’cause it seemed that was all that was advertised.. then, I saw the picture of the cover from your site.
Favorite Childhood Books include: The Ghost Next Door, A Wrinkle in TIme, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Pet Semetary (read it at age 13 and was instantly a King fan lol)
I Read This Book When I was 15 years old and I am Now 52. So, 1971 Sounds most likely.
It Still Remains My Favorite Mystery. I may read it again. I Loved This Book. Thanks for finding it.
This is crazy! I binge read this book at my dad’s girlfriend’s house (I borrowed it from her daughter) and remembered the cover and general storyline but couldn’t remember the title. I have thought about it off and on for years. Talk abou a trip down memory lane. So glad to finally remember!
I remember this book well! It was my all time childhood favorite. I remember trying to make blue roses, involving my aunt with a secret place where we left notes for each other and yes, I even tried to make an owl “with love in its eyes”. I recently found a copy on the internet and bought it. I also remember that I learned something from the book that served me quite well over the years … it involved how to ask questions to sort of trick someone into admitting something you know they knew and/or had done. Great memories!
The Ghost Next Door and Watcher in the Woods were my two favorites when I was about 9 or 10. There is an emoticon on the iPhone that is a smiley face with two hearts for eyes, my Mom sends it to me alot. The other night this book popped into my head because that emoticon had “love in its eyes.” :)
I have been looking for the title of this book for years! I remember reading it in 5th grade (1989/1990). Off to my Kindle to order it.