Book Review: The Puffin Book of Spooky Ghost Stories

Everyone loves a scary ghost story, don’t we? Spooky ghosts, gravestones, chittering bats, haunted houses – these are what we would want in a spooky story. But in this book, that is not the case. Come, let’s jump into the corners and crevices of The Puffin Book of Spooky Ghost Stories.

This amazing compilation of 13 thrilling short stories are written by famous Indian authors such as Ruskin Bond, Jerry Pinto, Paro Anand and more. Each of them have a different idea of scary stories. Some were thrilling, some a bit scary and some just funny.

One such story called ‘Saritha Kamakshi makes a mistake’ fell into the category of thriller. When Mr.Billimoria sells his beautiful, ancient bunglow to a rich man Adityasaheb, it is the job of Aditya’s employee Mr.Swami to finish the deal. Swami discovers strange things happening in the bunglow. But wait, who is Saritha Kamakshi? And what does she have to do with this story? These two questions will come to you as you read the story. So this story maintains the element of curiosity, crucial to a spooky tale. You want to read more and more and more….

Another story that interested me was ‘The School’ by Ranjit Lal. A brother and sister move next door to a school that is known to be shut for many years. They then spot the 23 children from their own school who were supposed to have died in a road accident, at the closed down school next door! What happened? Did they fake the deaths? Or is the ‘living dead’ theory true?

This one was an eerie story. The idea of the living dead makes one curious and thrills the reader making him believe in that some paranormal activity is going on. Also, the end of this story has an abrupt ending (which I will not tell you, because it is a surprise). Most of these stories had an abrupt ending, which I have also discovered, is an element that makes a good spooky story. The reader, who would probably be used to happy endings (This does not apply to me! I like reading mystery books!) Would be very curious to find out what happens next, and in the process, would like the story too.

There are many elements one can add to a scary story. I learnt from this book that you don’t always have to be scary for a spooky story – it can even be funny! This only makes the spooky tale more interesting and not just horrific.