From Publishers Weekly
Two children and a puppy bound across their backyard, "Looking high./ Looking low./ Off on a ghost hunt./ Here we go!" They "scat" past bats and "run and shout" past skeletons. When they retreat from a billowy apparition (which wears sneakers just like Mom's), the bats and skeletons become falling leaves and spindly trees. Vaughan's (Whistling Dixie) intermittent rhythms and long refrains proceed fitfully, but her italicized verbs add energy and crank up the wordplay. In color-saturated linocuts, Oliver and Amanda Pig series illustrator Schweninger pictures the hearty hunters marching in step. Even timid ghostbusters won't shiver. Ages 3-7.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
reS-Gr 2-In this takeoff on "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," two young children and their puppy set out to find a ghost. Chanting "We're not afraid./-No, we're not afraid at all!," they wade across a spooky mud-puddle swamp, dash past a haunted house, scurry under big black bats, then come across tree branches that look like skeleton bones and finally come to a creepy cave with a great, big, scary ghost inside. Hastily they retrace their steps, arriving home safe at last into the security of mother's outstretched arms. Large, cheery illustrations done in linoleum cut and printed with oil-base block-printing ink and watercolors ensure that this story told in rhyme is not too frightening for the very young. A good choice for preschoolers and beginning readers who want something just a tad scary for Halloween.
Sally R. Dow, Ossining Public Library, NY
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
