Illustrated by Don Bolognese

It’s been a while since I’ve stumbled upon a children’s storybook by prolific author, Clyde Robert Bulla. I had found some digital copies which I read to my children a few years ago, books like the ones listed at the end of this post.

I’ve since found a few more at garage sales and in our old school library, so I’ll sprinkle them in here and there as I get opportunity to read them. This one became my “breaktime read” at the office, though the only breaks I ever take are bathroom breaks. I’m only human.

I am normally not drawn to “ghost stories,” though having already tasted Bulla’s works before, I figured I could trust what he had to offer here. He didn’t disappoint, as his explanations of the inexplicable were quite easily explained.

I love the simplicity of Bulla’s stories which, despite their tell-the-plot-in-one-sentence nature, still contain twists and details I’d never expect. In this tale, I especially liked the characters we eet, out of the ordinary folk who fit the time and place quite nicely, and who add meat to the plot in a wat that’s simply unexpected.

Ever more so, I liked how he introduced names, dates, and places (the setting or context of his story) through simple dialogue. For example, on page 4, he quotes Professor Carver’s response to the report of a haunted house: “We are not living in the Dark Ages. We are living today, in the Year of Our Lord, 1851!” That’s a simple, natural way to set the context, and kudos to Bulla for pulling it off.

If I were to try and dissect Bulla’s story-writing style, I’d first seek to uncover the secret to his simplicity. He caught the grain of idea, couched it in a setting unique to his already well-developed repertoire of novels, and then seasoned it with some standout virtue before publishing it as a standalone novel for youth. Its no wonder he wrote so many tales! He could come up with one every day and never run out of ideas! Pirates, horses, ghosts, knights—he touched on all the genres that kids fancied back in the mid-20th century, and he did so always with a hint of suspense.

I’m not saying this guy was the greatest children’s author of all time. I’m just saying that his tastes were so varied and his themes were so moral, that his books could easily fill an entire library shelf and your kids would never get bored.

I don’t know about his religion (I’ve done no real digging into his biography), but I do know that his stories teach without ever getting preachy. If he wasn’t a believer in Christ and follower of the Word, then he was at least a man whose honorability played out in his stories. He published stories about 50 years too late for the Lamplighters to catch on, but as time progress, I hope they pick up on this guy. He’s definitely worth reading and preserving.

I’m not going to give any spoilers to this story in particular, and I apologize that this review is more a discussion of the author than of the book, but sometimes that’s all that’s needed. “This was a Bulla book” likely means I’d recommend it to anyone, and this time, I certainly do.

©2021 E.T.

Read More from Clyde Robert Bulla:

• The Secret Valley (1949)
• The Sword in the Tree (1956)
• The Ghost of Windy Hill (1968)
• The Shoeshine Girl (1975)
• A Lion to Guard Us (1981)