Ballad of the Spooky Books

Ray Hearne and children sing the Ballad of the Spooky Books at the Reading Sheffield Celebration Event 2014.

Arriving in the Carpenter Room, Sheffield Central Library.

Performing Ballad of the Spooky Books with Sheffield primary school children.

Ballad of the Spooky Books

I feel particularly lucky when they tuck

Me up, my nose stuck in a book…..

CHORUS

Spooky books are great books, rattling with bats

Ravens croaking and creepy-crawly cats

A dragon in a dungeon or in a mucky nook

Some crooked looking witches duck, and I’m on tenterhooks

The ‘Journal of a Zombie,’ that was very good

As ugly as an ogre, he had to wear a hood

And the story of a goblin, glimmery and green

Who turned a king into a kidney bean one Halloween

I love the paranormal, the freaky and the weird

A wizard with a pointy hat and beetles in his beard

A goodie or a baddie, I’m very rarely fussed

As long as there’s some blood and guts, that truly is a must

A greedy little vampire, starving underneath

A gloomy doomy bell-tower sharpened up her teeth

She couldn’t wait for midnight, then on the very stroke

Of eight o clock, she brushed and flossed, and buttoned up her cloak

A dapper little biter, proper claws and fangs

There’s lots of them in Sheffield, they hang about in gangs

Someone’s got to fight ‘em, but where we gonna start?

We’ll have to google ‘how to stick a stake in someone’s heart’

Teachers can be monsters too, we know for sure

It’s nasty when they are werewolves, there isn’t any cure

A silver bullet sometimes fettles ‘em they say

If anybody’s got one, we could do with it today

Every house should have one, a boggart or a ghoul

Poltergeists are far more noisy as a rule

In your laundry basket or underneath the sink

Panicking your manikins and kicking up a stink

A cellar full of trolls I could never recommend

Though I’ve only read the version I borrowed from a friend

They guzzle up gazpacho, gulp your guacamole

And leave their smelly socks to ripen in the cubby hole

A cackling in the dark night, a slither and a hiss

A corridor of mirrors to a bottomless abyss

They’re menacing behind me, all slimy up ahead

Malodorously vivid – it’s the best I’ve ever read!

Ray Hearne 16/07/2014

For Spooky Book drawings by Stradbroke children click here.

On the Road with Reading Sheffield

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Val Hewson

By Margaret Bennett

I recently spent a few days in Italy, in the city of Bologna.

One of Bologna’s nicknames is ‘Bologna la Dotta’ or ‘Bologna the Learned’, as it houses the oldest university in Europe. So maybe it is not so surprising that Tripadvisor has a list of the ten best libraries to visit in Bologna alone!

Given the dire state of repair of our own central library in Sheffield and the effect of severe central government funding cuts over a decade, I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the top libraries in Bologna is in fact its central public library – the Biblioteca Salaborsa. And I’m happy to report that it looks to be in a perfect state of repair!

*Palazzo Leoni – Biblioteca Salaborsa* *(by an unknown author. From Wikimedia Commons)*

The library is housed in a beautiful, historic building near to the Town Hall in Bologna’s central square, Piazza Maggiore. The building has been a fortress, a botanical garden, a basketball and boxing arena, a trading centre, a restaurant, a bank and a puppet theatre during its 2000+ years of life. The public library is one of the best in a city of libraries, not just because of its stunning home but also the quality and quantity of its books. The public can walk in and admire its spectacular central atrium, reading rooms, lecture theatres and exhibitions. There are even 1st century Roman remains in the basement, which are also open to the public to wander around freely.

*The central atrium of the Salaborsa* *(image courtesy of Margaret Bennett)*

*The reading room of the Salaborsa* *(image courtesy of Margaret Bennett)*

The public library has been in Salaborsa for 22 years but the first library open to the public in Bologna, the Aula Magna, was opened in 1756. It was a gift of Pope Benedict XIV. Its original walnut shelving holds 50,000 texts from the 16th to 18th centuries. Now part of the University Library, it is still possible to visit it on certain days, though sadly not when we were visiting the city.

We all say we value public libraries but I do wish we could follow Bologna’s wonderful example and put our money where our mouth is!

Reading Sheffield

All the books of our lives

Ballad of the Spooky Books (2014)

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