Recently while perusing the used children’s books at Toadstool, trying to decide what to read to some 3rd-graders, I found something surprising on the shelf: The Haunted Looking Glass: Ghost Stories chosen [and illustrated] by Edward Gorey – for $3! (click image to enlarge)

I probably wouldn’t have bought the book just for the illustrations, much as I love Gorey’s work  (and the book is physically charming), but having gone through a period of strong interest in ghost stories this past fall, I think it’ll be a fun read. It includes Charles Dickens’ “The Signal-man”, perhaps my favorite of the stories I read last fall, and a bunch of others I don’t know.

Yesterday morning I trooped down to the local school for to instill a love of reading in the young folk as part of Read Across America. First I ate pastries in the library with other volunteers, then we all went to the cafeteria to watch the principal talk and the kids sing a song about Dr. Seuss (whose birthday is today), take the “Reader’s Oath”, and enact a theatrical performance of Green Eggs and Ham. There was also a special visit by large-headed superhero Word Girl.

After that everyone went back to their classrooms. I read part of The Pirates’ Mixed-Up Voyage by Margaret Mahy to a class of 3rd-graders, then answered some questions about being a cartoonist & whatnot. I left them with a picture of Garfield and a chihuahua reading on a horse under the watchful eye of Old Man Winter (the elements were all suggestions from the kids).

Overall it was fun! It was a bit of a trip to visit my old elementary school as an adult. The school library has a nice comics section now. I also saw an Alfred Hitchcock collection of stories for young folk, and I wish I’d thought to photograph the bizarre endpapers..