Capturing mystery, fleetingness, memory, & discovery in THERE'S A GHOST IN THE GARDEN

Recently selected as one of the New York Times/New York Public Library’s Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2024, There’s a Ghost in the Garden is a gentle, probing picture book about the special relationship between a grandfather and his grandson, and the many traces, memories, and even ghosts with which we live. In this guest blog post, award-winning author Kyo Maclear and celebrated illustrator Katty Maurey take us behind the scenes, through their words and images, into how this evocative picture book was made.

**Illustrator Katty Maurey shares how There’s a Ghost in the Garden began**

Unlike most picture books, There’s a Ghost in the Garden began with its illustrator, Katty Maurey—and a real-life ghost encounter that inspired her very first sketches.

The idea for *There’s a Ghost in the Garden* came when my mother related an event to me:
One winter night, a guest staying at my parents’ house had gotten up, and was stunned to see a spectral figure in the garden. According to the guest, the figure made its way across the lawn, through some bushes, and then simply passed through the wall of the neighbour’s house.
I was fascinated by this story. I reached out to Kyo, and a seed was planted.

I was captivated by the idea of a ghost sharing a place that I had never considered to be particularly mysterious before.

The garden took hold of me, and as my senses stilled, things began to appear.

I tried to capture a sense of fleetingness: shifting light, rhythmic forms,
ever-changing states.

Sometimes, when I work, it feels like I am channelling a stream of indeterminate pieces. If I can set some of it down, maybe I can start to see things more clearly.

I always think of these words from Odilon Redon: “La matière révèlera des secrets, elle a son génie; c’est par elle que l’oracle parlera.” (The material will reveal secrets, it has its own genius; it’s through the material that the oracle will speak.)

And the graphite scratches on paper slowly started to form roots.

Little by little, it was as if the contours of the garden in the story drew themselves, as I reflected on the transitory nature of its shrubs and animal life—the garden as a place to nest and only a temporary halt before moving on.

Author Kyo Maclear’s mind begins to whir

After painting her sketches of the garden, Katty sends a few images—along with the phrase that started it all—to her friend and collaborator, the author Kyo Maclear. How will Kyo respond to this spark of inspiration?

In my experience, a few captivating words are enough to ignite a story. Several years ago, Katty shared several garden paintings with me along with a phrase: ***[There’s] a ghost in my garden.***

My mind immediately began to whir.

I wondered about the footsteps and movements of the person who might utter such words.
And how a garden might be shaped, in part, by the ghost or ghosts within it.

Ghosts in literature and popular culture are often seen as something to be feared or exorcised, but Katty’s art immediately kindled a more subtle, loving connection to the idea of ghosts and ghostliness.

I grew up in a family hospitable toward ghosts—or at least not immediately dismissive of them. Every summer, I would travel to Japan where my family welcomed home our ancestors during the three-day August festival of Obon. I remember carefully laying out flowers, incense, fruit, and water so our family ghosts would have a happy homecoming. We would dance bon odori to welcome the spirits of the dead.

From a young age, I had an understanding that ghosts were loved ones who keep looking out for us, and who we keep looking out for. I still believe the world is more than meets the eye. The invisible world, the spirit world—what we may sense but cannot see—remains very compelling to me.

I’m so happy our story found a home with the wondrous Enchanted Lion. We could not have created this book without ELB’s Claudia Bedrick—a true conjurer. She asked all the right questions and led us on a magical journey I’ll never forget.

It’s thrilling to see my words further come to life through Katty, a sorcerer in her own right, and I hope and trust that the story still carries what she originally imagined when she shared that first, tantalizing phrase with me.

Capturing the ineffable: Katty Maurey takes us from sketches to final art

Hard at work in her studio, Katty explores the different ways to capture the fog-like qualities of memory, the stillness and movement of late winter, and the safety and wilderness of a garden.

When creating a book, I quickly start thinking about the palette. For *There’s a Ghost in the Garden*, I wanted to evoke the fog-like qualities of memory.
I found certain answers looking at the daylight coming though curtains. Notice how some shadowy blues retain a certain warmth?

To find the garden, I started out with pencil and conté on paper. Out of the lead scratchings, the garden appeared.
In my mind, I conjured up the cold and slumbering of late winter, with its skeletal overgrowth. I kept thinking of that very special kind of buzzing underneath everything right before spring, that silent frenzy running through tangles of branches.
I thought a lot about stillness, and movement.

Buildings, like bird nests, don’t last forever. But I wanted to give the boy a sense of refuge: doorways and windowsills that he could grab hold of, which would lend him a sense of safety while exploring ideas of a greater wilderness in the garden.

It was important to capture the mood for this book in these sketches. I don’t always do it, but the ineffable is so important in the story that I felt like it needed me to work in this way. I needed each picture to be able to guide me to the next step: painting in gouache.

When it came time to work on the finals, general shapes were lifted from the drawings, then reinterpreted in colour. These materials are so different that it makes for a challenging translation. I had to let go of certain things and move forward with this new medium’s own character in mind.

I haven’t had a studio in the past few years and usually work from my dining table, but fortunately, my parents let me use their storage room, with a view of the garden through a dirty window.
A nice place to peer at ghosts.

This book took a long time to make. In this picture, I breathe a sigh of relief. After wrestling with all the elements, everything is finally all there. It feels like reemerging from the stupor I’ve put myself in!

What is a ghost? Kyo Maclear uncovers the many possibilities

Here, ghosts are memories, mysteries, discoveries, and so much more. Far from the typical specters from horror movies or kids’ cartoons, Kyo sees ghosts as representations of the child’s desire for reverence and communion with the unseen.

What was your first relationship with ghosts? Was it a movie or television haunting? A scary horror-story ghost? A friendly cartoon one? Did you ever sprint through the woods, imagining a spectral presence? Or sense someone warmly accompanying you in the moonlight? Do you believe in ghosts? What is a ghost? Is a memory a ghost?

In *There’s a Ghost in the Garden*, the ghosts are friendly entities, gentle and mischievous, but they’re represented differently from what we often see in mainstream culture—no white sheet with two holes for eyes; no cute, cloudy characters. It was important to me to retain an element of mystery. I wanted the ghosts to feel beguiling but “other.”

Adults tame ghosts into adorable mascots for children because we project our own fears and concerns (about death, about child-appropriateness) onto ghosts. I think there’s a place in a child’s mind that craves reverence and communion with the unseen. Kids who are “into ghosts” often relate to them in a brave, matter-of-fact, curious way. They are capable of profound connection to imagined and ghostly worlds. Sometimes all that’s required is a portal, in the form of a garden… or book.

Here, Katty has created a beautiful doorway through which the ghosts can show themselves. There’s a sacred feeling to her work that feels urgent, mysterious, loving—and truly child-welcoming.

Katty begins the story with endpapers.

The mystery of the entire book starts with this layered and leafy overture.

We’re then invited to roam the illustrations as we might roam through a garden, encountering nooks, hollows, shadows. We’re not directed where to look, so when we discover hidden presences, these discoveries feel special, private, and truly our own. Katty trusts the material to speak and add its own eloquence to the story. (The wonderful Odilon Redon quote she shared really captures this sensibility!)