Title of an old kid's book about two boys in a haunted house?

September 7, 2014 4:30 PM

When I was a kid I read a scary book that kind of stuck with me for some reason. I'm curious to read it again, but I can't recall the title. It was about two boys who worked as gravediggers, or at least one of them did and the other hung around with him in the cemetery. They liked to make up macabre rhymes about the names on the tombstones. Stuff like, "Here lies the body of Eliza McBain, somebody pushed her in front of a train."

They meet some weird kid who invites them or dares them to go to some house, and the place turns out to be haunted. At the end the two boys escape the haunted house, but they've lost their taste for the macabre. Sound familiar?

I would have read this in the 1980s, but I think the book was older than that. I think it may have been set on Halloween. It's probably not a very good book, and it was definitely for kids, but as I said it stuck with me. It seems like it could be a fun, nostalgic read for the Halloween season.

Any ideas about what the heck this book could be?

posted by Ursula Hitler to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

This is Edward Gorey's "The Gashleycrumb Tinies," or something derived from it. Maybe look after that date?
posted by adipocere at 4:49 PM on September 7, 2014

Response by poster: Definitely not Gashleycrumb Tinies, a book I know well. The rhymes were just a small part of this book, something the boys made up for fun while they were digging graves.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:53 PM on September 7, 2014

Was this set in Liverpool or some place with a classic English sound to it? Did one of the boys have a father who worked in a stockyard?

I'm having some hazy recollections, myself ...
posted by adipocere at 4:53 PM on September 7, 2014

Any of John Bellairs' stuff (like "The House with a Clock in its Walls")?
posted by lovableiago at 5:44 PM on September 7, 2014

Best answer: I can't remember if this had a weird kid and a haunted house, but it had the cemetery job and the rhymes... Here lies the body. It was definitely on the scary side- can't remember all the details but I can suddenly remember being totally creeped out it.
posted by tinymojo at 5:46 PM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Yes! Thanks, Tinymojo, I do believe that's it!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:16 PM on September 7, 2014

Response by poster: An addendum for anybody who happens to read this thread. It seems my memory was combining this book with another by the same author, The Red Room Riddle.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:11 AM on September 26, 2014