Ghost books, along with animal books and dinosaur books, are always hot with young readers. A World Full of Ghosts brings spectral beings from around the world under one roof for what should be an evening of spine-chilling (yet informative) delight, but instead, the book is a haphazardly curated exhibit of lost souls.

Charis Cotter’s book offers brief profiles of select ghost species mixed with “true” first-person accounts of hauntings and ghostly encounters from around the world, as well as overviews of creepy holidays like Halloween and the Day of the Dead. The ghosts are grouped into categories for easy digestion – Animal Ghosts, Helpful Ghosts, Hungry Ghosts, etc. – and include many unfamiliar and atypical entries, including the Dancing Ahkiyyini from Alaska, the Scottish Nuggle, and the Wandering Gaucho of Argentina.

Ghost stories and legends require a certain attention to detail to help the young mind enjoy the experience of being scared. Suspense, gory descriptives, and legend-spinning are a must, but Cotter’s spartan profiles are too flat to draw a young reader in. The entries are coded using a system of skulls as a sort of fright-o-meter, but even this does little to enliven the curiously bland and choppy text.

The design is encumbered by the odd selection of a sans-serif font and unjustified text for the generally brief narrative content. These layout issues regrettably interfere with Marc Mongeau’s watercolour illustrations, which are the most engaging parts of the book. The images range from literal depictions of the subject to whimsical and doodle-like page borders. Mongeau’s distinctive style is interesting in its use of a soft, muted palette as a backdrop to the subtly spooky spirits.