THE GHOST STORY TREASURY

Fifteen mild stories and poems, mostly ghostly, in a handsome, large-format companion volume to Spenceley's Christmas Book and The Animal Tale Treasury. With the possible exception of Ruskin Bond's ""Wind on Haunted Hill,"" set in modern India, the items in this collection have been published previously; some, such as Hamilton's version of ""The Tailypo"" (from The People Could Fly) or an excerpt from Mahy's The Haunting, may lead readers to search out the original. The ghosts and assorted other creatures aren't likely to send chills up anyone's spine--Death appears as no more than a harried and not-too-bright bureaucrat, for example, and the Bogle (Sorche Nic Leodhas' ""The House That Lacked a Bogle"") turns out to be all too friendly. Generous margins leave ample room for Spenceley's often comic watercolors, which, without varying greatly in style, capture the mood of each story, whether matter-of-fact or eerie and suggestive. A good collection to answer the demand for books that are scary but not frightening.