A crow illustration
accompanying
Sydney Stevens’
new book.
Continued from Page 11
Stevens’ collection also includes the tale
of Mrs. Crouch, a preacher’s wife who died
under mysterious circumstances. Her body
was found in a river and some locals sus-
pect that her husband may have been the
killer. These are old stories familiar to long-
time peninsula residents. “It’s all of those
old familiar people and ghosts, but this time
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talking to a younger audience,” she said.
Geared toward readers roughly middle
school aged, Stevens’ new book is set to be
published as part of Arcadia Publishing’s
“Spooky America” series. With input from
both editors and younger relatives, Stevens
re formatted the collection. She empha-
sized some of the more spooky elements to
engage younger readers and tightened up
the stories by cutting out much of the back-
ground historical information.
The new book also includes 50 images.
“Most of these are black and white draw-
ings to pair with the stories,” Stevens said.
They also include a collection of photo-
graphs that help to bring the tales to life.
“The Ghostly Tales of the Long Beach Pen-
insula” gives young readers a vehicle to
dive into the peninsula’s history by way of
ghost stories. “I don’t feel the traditional
way of teaching history is necessarily the
most eff ective way,” she said, “if a (histori-
cal story) involved a ghost story, you have a
chance of really planting some seeds.”
Stevens hopes the book will pique young
readers’ interest and lead them to explor-
ing more about local history. “That’s worth
all of the eff ort of writing a ghost story,” she
said. “S tories are a great way to open their
eyes,” she added. Stevens worked as an edu-
cator for nearly 40 years, an experience
that has helped her along in understanding
young readers’ comprehension ability.
Stevens’ family connections to the pen-
insula spurred much of her curiosity. Her
great-grandfather, Robert Hamilton Espy,
co-founded the Oysterville village in the
mid 19th century. When she moved to the
Long Beach area full-time in the 1970s,
Stevens took the opportunity to dive into
writing about the region’s history.
“The Ghostly Tales of the Long Beach
Peninsula,” will be available starting on
Monday.