I’ve always been intrigued by graveyards, especially those with very old tombstones. I can spend hours wandering through a graveyard, reading the inscriptions on tombstones and looking for clues about the people they commemorate. I even held a séance in a cemetery late one night with two friends — but that’s a story for a different blog post!
One of my favorite cemeteries is the Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina, near where I live. The Riverside Cemetery is so rich in history that it has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Though I haven’t found it yet, I’ve been told that the cemetery contains a gravestone that reads, “Killed by a desperado.” The graves of authors William Sydney Porter, whose pen name was O. Henry, and Thomas Wolfe are also located in the Riverside Cemetery.
Thomas Wolfe’s most famous novel, Look Homeward, Angel, features what might be the most famous gravestone in literature. Wolfe’s real-life father ran a gravestone business and once kept a large statue of an angel outside his shop to advertise the business
Tombstones are such handy plot devices that they pop up in books of every genre. When a reader encounters a tombstone in a novel, they immediately know something interesting is about to happen. Here are three children’s books in which gravestones play a major role in the story.
The Swallow: A Ghost Story
By Charis Cotter
In The Swallow, two 12-year-old girls, Polly and Rose, discover that they have something in common: They both feel out of place in their families. Polly’s parents have four children of their own, have adopted two more, and have a foster child as well. No one pays attention to Polly anymore. Rose is an only child whose parents work all the time and leave her in the care of a housekeeper who is cranky and brusque.
One thing Polly and Rose don’t have in common is their feelings about ghosts. Polly is fascinated by the idea of ghosts and longs to see a real one. Rose has been able to see real ghosts since she was a small child, and she wishes they would leave her alone.
When Polly and Rose venture into the graveyard near their home, they are both shocked when Polly literally stumbles over a gravestone that has Rose’s name on it. The girl in the grave lived and died 40 years earlier, but she had the same birthday as Rose and she died at the age of 13 — an age that Rose will soon reach. Polly is certain this proves that Rose is a ghost, and even Rose begins to doubt herself. The two girls set out to solve the question of whether Rose is a ghost. In the process, they discover that shocking secrets lie at the heart of both of their families.
You can learn more about Charis Cotter at chariscotter.com/.
Moon over Manifest
By Clare Vanderpool
As Moon Over Manifest begins, Abilene Tucker arrives in the town of Manifest, Kansas. She has been sent there by her father, Gideon. Abilene has lived a vagabond’s life with her father ever since her mother abandoned the family when Abilene was very young. She knows how to jump on and off trains, panhandle, and perform odd jobs for money. She is bewildered by her father suddenly decided to send her alone to Manifest, a town where he spent time as a child.
Despite feeling abandoned, Abilene quickly makes friends with two classmates, Lettie and Ruthanne. Abilene discovers a cigar box full of interesting odds and ends hidden under a floorboard in her room. The contents of the cigar box send Abilene and her friends on a mission to solve the mystery of who put them in the box and why, even after they receive a threatening note telling them to “Leave Well Enough Alone.”
For Abilene, it is also a search for information about why her father left Manifest and never returned. Their search for answers involves bootleggers, shady land deals, merciless mine bosses, orphans, the Spanish influenza epidemic, and the mystery behind a headstone they discover. It provides proof that headstones don’t always tell the truth about who lies within a grave.
You can learn more about Clare Vanderpool at clarevanderpool.com/.
The Spotted Dog Last Seen
By Jessica Scott Kerrin
All the sixth-grade students at Derek Knowles-Collier’s elementary school are required to participate in a community service program. Derek is sick on the day the assignments are made, and he gets stuck with what’s left — doing landscaping and repairs at a local cemetery.
Derek does not look forward to the assignment. When he was very young, a childhood friend was struck and killed by a car when he ran into the road to catch a ball. Derek is prone to nightmares about the incident, and he worries that working in a cemetery will make his condition worse.
Derek and his partners on the project, Pascal and Merrilee, are supervised by the Cemetery Brigade, three dour old men whose knowledge of headstones is encyclopedic. Derek finds himself becoming interested in spite of himself as he learns, the parts of a gravestone (lunette, finials, etc.), what they are made of, and how to decipher letters that have been partially eroded. Much of their training is done in the library near the cemetery.
The plot thickens when an anonymous donation of a book arrives at the library. Merrilee discovers that a code is hidden in the book. Six seemingly unrelated words — helicopter, flashlight, tripod, radiator, basket, and orchid — are penciled on the flyleaf. When the trio deciphers that code, it leads to another one. Soon Derek and his friends are caught up in solving several interconnected mysteries. In the process, Derek has to finally face the truth about the death of his friend.
You can learn more about Jessica Scott Kerrin at jessicascottkerrin.com/.
These three books show that a tombstone isn’t always the end of a story. Sometimes it’s just the beginning.
As for my own tombstone … I just hope it doesn’t have any misspelled words or punctuation errors.