Colourful Ghosts of Pippendorf Manor
By Mauri Kunnas
In the new hilarious picture book Colourful Ghosts of Pippendorf Manor Mauri Kunnas reintroduces the ghost family from his classic scary story collection The Great Big Spooky Book published in 1985. The laugh-out-loud funny ghost story in Kunnas’ inimitable style is also a spot-on social commentary of generation clash, online shopping and on poor postal services.
The grandmother “Grey Lady” is annoyed by her grandchildren’s shabby robes with holes in them, even if the kids claim that it’s the fashion to wear ripped off sheets. She orders them new sheets online, but as the postman sees her coming to the self-service post office, he gets scared and mixes up the parcels. When the kids open the parcel, the sheets turn out to be in colourful pattern. They think the new robes are cool and head out to spook as it’s Friday 13th, the night of ghosts. Unfortunately their appearance causes havoc in town, some people get understandably scared but a bunch of ghost spotters start following them and try taking pictures of them, disturbing the ghosts’ celebratory picnic.
Eventually the no-nonsense policeman throws the ghost spotters behind the bars after they tried jumping on the jail roof, and even the photos turn out to show just colourful sheets – but the ghosts think the new sheets are fun and all decide to get new patterned outfits. The original white sheets that granny had ordered end up with someone else, and a lot of other people also have mixed up parcels.
