Ghosts

by Raina Telgemeier

Catrina and her family move to a foggy coastal town in Northern California, where her younger sister Maya, who has cystic fibrosis, discovers the town's ghostly history and the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos.

Big Idea

Facing our fears — of illness, of loss, of the unknown — is easier when we understand our cultural traditions and lean on family.

Discussion Questions

1.How does Cat's fear of ghosts connect to her fear of Maya's illness?
2.What does the town's Dia de los Muertos celebration teach Cat about death?
3.How does Maya's cystic fibrosis affect the family's decisions?
4.What traditions help your family remember loved ones?

Lesson Plan

⏱ 45-60 minutes📦 Construction paper, markers, scissors, glue, printed images of ofrendas

Learning Goals

Understand the cultural significance of Dia de los Muertos
Explore how different cultures approach death and remembrance
Analyze how a character's fear evolves throughout a story
Develop empathy and cultural awareness

Activity Steps

1.Discuss the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos shown in the book
2.Have students research the elements of a traditional altar
3.Students create a paper altar with pictures, symbols, and descriptions
4.Share altars and discuss how remembering loved ones helps us
5.Reflect on how Cat's feelings about ghosts changed

Standards Connections

ELA: RL.4.1 — Ask and answer questions about key details
ELA: RL.4.2 — Retell stories, including key details
ELA: RL.4.3 — Describe characters, setting, and events
ELA: RL.7.6 — Acknowledge differences in characters' points of view
ELA: SL.4.1 — Participate in collaborative conversations about the text
ELA: W.4.3 — Write narratives recounting events with descriptive details
SEL: Social Awareness
SEL: Relationship Skills
Art: VA:Re7 — Perceive and analyze artistic work

Pace-Write-Read Study with Pace-Write It!

Focus question: How does Raina Telgemeier control the speed of Ghosts so readers can feel both everyday family life and the suspense of the supernatural? In Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier, Catrina moves with her family to Bahía de la Luna, where she struggles with fear, change, and her sister Maya’s illness while learning about ghosts and Día de los Muertos. Telgemeier uses graphic-novel pacing, including page turns, panel size, dialogue, silence, and artwork, to slow down emotional moments and speed up exciting or spooky scenes.

Element	How to notice or teach it in the novel
Pace	Read: Notice how Ghosts shifts between quick, lively scenes with Maya’s excitement and slower, quieter moments when Catrina worries about her sister and their move. Classroom Activity: Write two short scenes about the same event, one fast-paced and one slow-paced, using a family moment inspired by Catrina and Maya.
Plot	Read: Notice how the plot moves from a family move, to Catrina’s discomfort in the new town, to Maya’s curiosity about ghosts, and then toward the Día de los Muertos celebration and Catrina’s emotional change. Classroom Activity: Make a 5-step plot ladder for Ghosts, then write a new step that could fit between Maya meeting the ghosts and the festival night.
Prosody	Read: Notice how the dialogue and panel flow create a reading rhythm, especially when Maya talks energetically and when Catrina responds with hesitation or worry. Classroom Activity: Choose a short exchange between Catrina and Maya and rewrite it as a read-aloud script with notes for where the voice should speed up, slow down, or soften.
Word pause	Read: Notice how single words, short reactions, and brief speech bubbles create pauses, especially when Catrina is startled or unsure around the ghosts. Classroom Activity: Write a comic-style conversation in which a character pauses with one-word responses to show fear, surprise, or uncertainty.
Concept	Read: Notice how Ghosts combines realistic family challenges, cystic fibrosis, and cultural traditions with supernatural elements to explore ideas of life, memory, and connection. Classroom Activity: Write a paragraph explaining how you could combine a real family problem with one unusual or magical idea in your own story.
Voice & World View	Read: Notice how the story reflects Catrina’s point of view as someone protective, nervous, and sometimes frustrated, while Maya sees the same world with curiosity and boldness. Classroom Activity: Write about the same ghostly town scene twice, once in Catrina’s worried voice and once in Maya’s excited voice.
Setting & Place	Read: Notice how Bahía de la Luna’s fog, cliffs, sea air, and old buildings shape the mood and make the town feel both beautiful and eerie. Classroom Activity: Write a setting paragraph about a town or neighborhood using weather, landforms, and buildings to create either a comforting or spooky pace.
Point of View	Read: Notice how readers experience events mainly through Catrina, so Maya’s illness and the ghosts feel filtered through Cat’s emotions and questions. Classroom Activity: Rewrite one Ghosts moment from Maya’s point of view, focusing on what she notices that Catrina might miss.
Original Characters	Read: Notice how Catrina, Maya, and Carlos each affect pacing differently: Cat slows scenes with worry, Maya energizes scenes with curiosity, and Carlos pushes the plot forward with ghost stories and humor. Classroom Activity: Invent three characters for a story and give each one a different effect on pacing.
Dialogue	Read: Notice how dialogue reveals family tension, sisterly teasing, and growing trust, especially in conversations about moving, illness, and the ghosts. Classroom Activity: Write a dialogue between two siblings who disagree about something scary, making each line show personality the way Cat and Maya’s lines do.
Details	Read: Notice the small details about Maya’s health routines, the family’s move, and the town’s traditions that make the story feel real even when ghosts appear. Classroom Activity: Write a short scene about a family tradition and include at least five precise details that make it believable.
Descriptions	Read: Notice how Telgemeier uses both words and images to describe fog, facial expressions, and the glow of festival scenes, often keeping text brief because the art carries meaning. Classroom Activity: Write three sentences describing a spooky-but-welcoming place, using strong sensory details that could guide an illustrator.
Strong First Lines	Read: Notice how the opening quickly places readers in the family’s move and introduces the tension between Maya’s excitement and Catrina’s reluctance. Classroom Activity: Write three different opening lines for a story about moving to a strange town, and make one focus on fear, one on excitement, and one on mystery.
Immediacy & Engagement	Read: Notice how Ghosts draws readers in quickly through expressive faces, direct dialogue, and immediate conflict about the move and Maya’s condition. Classroom Activity: Write the first six lines of a scene that begins with a problem right away, the way Ghosts starts with change and tension.
Story Scenes & Summaries & Unique Structures	Read: Notice how some parts unfold as full scenes, such as conversations and ghost encounters, while other parts move quickly through time with shorter transitions between events. Classroom Activity: Write one full scene of a family argument and then a three-sentence summary that skips ahead to what happens later that week.
Flashback & Flash Forward & Cliffhangers	Read: Notice how Ghosts mostly moves forward, but suspense builds through what characters reveal gradually about the town, the family’s past choices, and what may happen to Maya. Classroom Activity: Write a scene ending on a cliffhanger after a character opens a door, then add one brief flashback sentence explaining why the moment matters.
Tension & Suspense & Surprise	Read: Notice how tension comes not only from ghosts, but from Catrina’s deeper fear of losing Maya and not knowing how to face illness and change. Classroom Activity: Write a paragraph that begins with an ordinary walk and slowly adds tension until something surprising appears.
Page Turns and Chapter Breaks	Read: Notice how page turns in the graphic novel format help reveal ghosts, emotional reactions, or changes in setting at just the right moment. Classroom Activity: Plan a two-page comic scene and mark what important image or line should be saved for the page turn.
Performance	Read: Notice how the story could be performed with changing expression, volume, and timing, especially in scenes between Cat, Maya, and Carlos. Classroom Activity: Turn one Ghosts-style scene into a short performance script and add stage directions for pauses, gasps, and excited interruptions.
Personality	Read: Notice how Catrina’s protective personality and Maya’s fearless personality create different pacing because one hesitates and one rushes forward. Classroom Activity: Write a character sketch of a person whose personality speeds up a story and another whose personality slows it down.
Humor	Read: Notice how humor, especially through Maya’s bold comments and sibling interactions, lightens the heavier themes and keeps the pacing from becoming too dark. Classroom Activity: Write a short scene about a scary moment that includes one funny line to release tension.
Pause	Read: Notice the emotional pauses when Catrina reflects, looks at Maya, or takes in the meaning of what ghosts and remembrance might represent. Classroom Activity: Write a scene and include one intentional pause where the character stops speaking and only notices what is around them.
Poetry and Poetic Devices	Read: Notice how even in a graphic novel, repeated imagery like fog, light, and drifting figures creates a poetic feeling tied to memory and loss. Classroom Activity: Write four lines of poetic description about fog or candles inspired by the mood of Ghosts.
Repetition	Read: Notice how repeated concerns about Maya’s health, repeated ghost references, and repeated sibling patterns build meaning and emotional rhythm across the book. Classroom Activity: Write a paragraph that repeats one key phrase three times to show growing emotion.
Rhythm	Read: Notice how the rhythm changes between energetic banter, quiet reflection, and suspenseful ghost scenes, creating emotional variety. Classroom Activity: Write eight lines that alternate between short and long sentences to create changing rhythm in a scene.
Punctuation	Read: Notice how question marks, ellipses, and exclamation points help show Catrina’s uncertainty, Maya’s excitement, and the sudden surprises of the ghost scenes. Classroom Activity: Rewrite the same line of dialogue three times using different punctuation to change the pacing and mood.
Questions	Read: Notice how Ghosts keeps readers engaged by raising questions about the town, the ghosts, Maya’s future, and how Catrina will change. Classroom Activity: Write five reader questions your own story should make people ask by the end of page one.
Compare-Contrast	Read: Notice the contrasts between Cat and Maya, California sunshine and coastal fog, fear and curiosity, and living family members and remembered spirits. Classroom Activity: Write a compare-contrast paragraph about two siblings or friends who react differently to the same unusual event.
Objects	Read: Notice how objects connected to health, home, and Día de los Muertos carry emotional meaning and help move scenes forward. Classroom Activity: Choose one meaningful object from a family tradition and write how it could appear in three different moments of a story.
Threes	Read: Notice how groups of three can appear in storytelling patterns, such as three reactions, three details, or three attempts to understand something, helping scenes feel complete. Classroom Activity: Write a short paragraph that uses a set of three sensory details to build mood before a ghost appears.
Whitespace & Negative Space	Read: Notice how open space in panels, quiet backgrounds, and wordless moments slow the pace and let readers feel Catrina’s emotions. Classroom Activity: Plan a comic panel sequence with one panel that has no words, and explain what the empty space helps readers feel.
Art & Graphics	Read: Notice how color, facial expressions, panel size, and movement in the artwork shape pacing in Ghosts just as much as the words do. Classroom Activity: Sketch or describe a three-panel sequence showing a character going from nervous to brave, using visual pacing choices.
Interactives & Gamification	Read: Notice how readers can almost track clues like a mystery as they learn about the ghosts, the town, and Catrina’s feelings. Classroom Activity: Create a pacing map or choice board where readers decide which clue, conversation, or setting detail should come first, second, and third in a ghostly family story.

Pace-Write It!

20-Minute Classroom Flow\nRead (5 min): Read a short section from Ghosts that shows both Catrina’s worry and Maya’s excitement, especially a scene involving the town’s ghosts or the Día de los Muertos build-up. Ask students to pay attention to where the story feels fast, slow, quiet, or suspenseful.\nNotice (5 min): Discuss: What makes this scene move quickly? What makes it pause? Guide students to notice panel size, facial expressions, dialogue length, page turns, and moments of silence. Chart student observations under two headings: Speeds Up the Scene / Slows Down the Scene.\nWrite (7 min): Students write their own short graphic-novel-style scene about two family members reacting differently to the same strange event. Writing frame: “When ___ arrived at ___, I noticed ___. ‘___,’ said ___. But ___ wanted to ___. I paused when ___. Then something unexpected happened: ___. Now I felt ___ because ___.” Encourage students to include at least one quick line of dialogue, one pause, and one strong visual detail.\nShare (3 min): Partners read their scenes aloud and identify one place where the pacing speeds up and one place where it slows down. Invite 1-2 volunteers to share how they used pacing like Raina Telgemeier.\nExit ticket: Write one sentence answering: How can a writer slow down an important emotional moment in a graphic novel or story?

Classroom Activities

Dia de los Muertos Altar

Students learn about Dia de los Muertos and create a paper altar honoring a loved one or historical figure.

Dia de los Muertos Altar

Students learn about Dia de los Muertos and create a paper altar honoring a loved one or historical figure.

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