Haunted Australia
Author: John Heffernan
Publisher: Scholastic
Type: Soft Cover
Pages: 161
Genre: non-fiction
Published: 2005
ISBN: 9781865048260I purchased this book online at about three in the morning, along with a few others, i missed the fact it was a scholastic book. For those who don't know Scholastic does fine works making books easier for school children to access. However Scholastic books tend to be for younger readers, so it has large printing, is wide spaced, glosses over many details and sometimes descends into silly speak.
Now don't get me wrong using 'spooxpert' to refer to parapsychologists, or paranormal investigators was kind of amusing the first time, however it grated more and more with every single use, and by the end of the book i wanted to hit something.
To be fair to this book i am going to rate it as best i can for its child to teen target audience.
The book is a collection of true ghost encounters from Australia, while some cover a few pages others take up a single paragraph.
The book has a good introduction, and i should mention i suppose that the book does deal with ghosts and therefore mentions death a few times, as with everything, if you are concerned about younger readers, be a responsible parent and read it yourself first, and discuss it after you have both read it. There are no pictures in this book at all, though some pages have a pattern (as seen in the above photo).
The book covers haunted houses, ships, theaters, hotels, islands, barracks, prisons, hospitals, roads and even a haunted toilet.
There is a section on ghost animals including horses and cattle in addition to the usual dogs and cats.
Other topics covered include Indigenous spirits, 'guardian angels', ghost hunting, spook (min min) lights, ghost towns, phantom hitchhikers, animal PSI, possession and old hag syndrome.
There is a short frequently asked questions, but sadly;
"Why are you trying to make 'spooxperts' a thing?"
wasn't one of those questions, my personal conclusion is that it wasn't included because there is no excuse as 'spooxperts' is an unjustifiable abuse of the English language.
The book closes with a glossary and some references. There is no index!
OK so all joking aside, this is a decent book, i can see myself reading this in mid to late primary school maybe. It might have been nice to know there were other haunted houses in Australia. Its simple to read, doesn't get too dark and should peek a child's interest in exploring the subject more. Personally while i can understand not putting the home addresses in the descriptions i would still have liked to see times, dates, and names, some of the places described have been destroyed so why not give there locations. And it has no index, how can any book of this nature be published without an index?
I would recommend this book to younger readers who have an interest in the paranormal or are experiencing a haunting, books of this nature focusing on Australia are not too common so anyone interest in Australia or its history might also find this book a launching point to further research.
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