Haunted Newfoundland Ghost Stories
1 hour
Grades 4 through 6
125 students maximum in person
150 students maximum virtual visits
$250 plus gas in person (includes HST)
$200 virtual (includes HST)
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A school visit from multi-award-winning author Charis Cotter and a host of Newfoundland ghosts! She’ll take your students on a creepy tour of the most haunted island in the world, showing how traditional ghost stories reflect the landscape, culture and history of Newfoundland. She helps students identify “culture clues” – story details that reveal how people lived and what they believed at the time of the story.
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For some reason, Newfoundland has more ghosts than anywhere else. Ghosts in the ocean, ghosts on the barrens, ghosts in lighthouses, and ghosts at kitchen parties. Some stories go back hundreds of years, like the Old Hollies, said to be the victims of shipwrecks, who are heard screaming in the wind just before a bad storm. Charis tells a very old story about a ghostly longboat glimpsed in the fog near Baccalieu Island and describes an unsettling experience she had herself on the barrens one dark Newfoundland night. Charis ends with a spine-chilling account of ghostly footsteps in Bay de Verde in the 1920s.
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Charis writes spooky novels and ghost stories for middle-grade readers grade 4 to 6. Her latest novel, The Mystery of the Haunted Dance Hall, has received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers’ Weekly. Screech! Ghost Stories from Old Newfoundland won the Hackamatack Children’s Choice Award in 2022, and Footsteps in Bay de Verde: A Mysterious Tale won the Newfoundland Book Award for Children’s Literature in 2022.
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This interactive presentation features storytelling from these last two books, a Q&A, a discussion guide, and a ghost-story challenge for students to collect their own ghost stories from families and friends.
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Curriculum Connections
Language Arts
Reading and Listening
Heritage and Culture
Spiritual Beliefs
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Signed copies of Charis' books
Charis sends a book order form to the school a week before her presentation. Students can order a signed copy of any one of her books. Cash only.
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Book this presentation now.
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