There’s a Ghost in the Garden

This gentle meditation on change and memory by prior collaborators Maclear and Maurey (The Specific Ocean) opens with the title phrase, spoken by the work’s child narrator. A gouache painting shows a ghostly image; it’s the young protagonist, seen behind sheer window curtains. Quiet, desaturated spreads in cream, moss, and sand set the story in a garden of sculpted forms as child and grandfather contemplate the work of the ghost, who sometimes leaves tracks and knocks over pots, and sometimes deposits small treasures, like a tiny statuette they find in a bird’s nest. Grandpa’s memories feel a bit like ghosts, too, the book reveals. The big forest has been reduced to a strip of trees, the stream he used to swim in is gone (“I sometimes think I can smell it and feel its coolness,” the child remarks), and an old bathtub in the garden has disappeared. Yet he knows where they are: “He says memory has a geography just like the world.” The day before the visit ends, the child and Grandpa build a new place to listen for the stream in this contemplative journey into a realm where past and present reside cheek-to-cheek. The characters are portrayed with pale skin. Ages 6–9. (Oct.)