Familiar and Haunting: Collected Stories — Philippa Pearce

FAMILIAR
Here are stories of everyday life, as familiar as a piece of rope and...

...as haunting as fear: Mike knows that he can't swing over the river on the knotted rope, but with everyone watching him, he has to try.

...as haunting as a stranger: Who is the frightened-looking girl stealing plums from Nicky's grandparents' precious tree?

...as haunting as cruelty: How can Joe escape from his mean cousin Dicky during a family reunion?

HAUNTING
And here are stories with a supernatural twist, as haunting as the eerie whistling from the hill above Burnt House in the middle of the night and...

...as familiar as guilt: A boy forgets the mysterious bottle his cousin loaned him, but when he sneaks out at night to retrieve it, the shadowy whistlers close in on him.

...as familiar as loneliness: A ghost who's unbearably lonesome makes his neighbors suffer until a girl with a sense of the absurd shows him how things could be different.

...as familiar as love: The ghost of a boy comes back to save his father from dying in a ferocious storm.

Peopled with vivid, unforgettable characters, this collection of thirty-seven stories is by turns mysterious, humorous, strange, and sad, but it is always familiar, always haunting, and always surprising.