In the children's book series, 43 Old Cemetery Road, Kate Klise created tons of better than average puns. Some are really quite the groaners.
43 Old Cemetery Road is strictly the title of the whole series of 7 books. Each individual book carries its own title as well. You'll see each of these titles in the synopses below.
I really enjoyed this series, and I think you parents and grandparents would have fun reading them with your children too.
There are some puns that, depending on the age and vocabulary of your young reader, may need a bit of an explanation. Many of them make more sense if you say them aloud and slur them slightly to hear the pun.
Virtually every character's name throughout all 7 books is a pun.
Klise manages to educated children (and maybe some of us adults) along the way too. There's a little history, drama, cryptology, and more in each book.
She doesn't beat you over the head with it though. It's a natural part of the story. You learn without really trying.
Comments on Each Book in the Series
In book 1, you learn the parts of a story: Setup, Complications, Conflict, Character Development.
A person’s character can change.
An adult can read the whole book in one sitting. There are no chapters, so it’s hard to put down. Children might not have the time or ability to read it all at once, but two or three sittings should be the most needed, depending on the age and ability of the child.
Everything “works” well. Nothing is overly trite or extremely contrived.
The book you are reading is the book that the characters are writing or nearly so.
Book 2 teaches that “Only Dick Taters burn books.”
A nice pun at the end is that “...neither would ever, could ever, abandon Hope.” "Hope" is capitalized on purpose. It will make sense when you get there.
The font in the newspaper articles is small for old eyes but interesting to read.
You'll find a clever use of secret code: A=1, B=2, etc.
In book 3, the history of several real coins is given.
Book 4 is slightly hokier than previous books, but it still makes a decent point about modern technology and how some younger people use it constantly.
Book 5 feels like the weakest story in the series. There is very little action.
Book 6 was more entertaining than #5.
In book 7, it’s not entirely clear why the tortoise is worth $10,000. This book has perhaps the most contrived plots of all the books.
Synopsis of Each Book in 43 Old Cemetery Road
Book 1 - Dying to Meet You
Ignatius B. Grumply rents Spence Mansion for the summer so he can write a book to pay off his debts.
Spence Mansion is haunted by Olive C. Spence, former designer and owner of the mansion. She is a ghost who allows herself to be seen on occasion by Seymour Hope the occupant of the mansion.
The mansion is currently owned by Seymour’s parents who abandoned him there when they went of Europe for a lecture tour about the paranormal.
Grumply is having a terrible time trying to write his book. He thinks Seymour is interrupting him, but it’s really Olive.
At first, Olive and Seymour don’t want Grumply in the house and try to make him leave. Grumply doesn’t believe in ghosts, but eventually Olive brings him around.
Through conversations with Olive written on Grumply’s computer, they eventually come to love each other. The three of them (including Seymour) decide to work together to write 3 chapters of the book. Those readers who want the next 3 chapters send in money for them. The money is enough for Seymour to buy the mansion from his parents who had intended to demolish it.
The house is spared and the three occupants, plus Shadow the cat, continue to live there as a family.
Ignatius B. Grumply rents Spence Mansion for the summer so he can write a book to pay off his debts.
Spence Mansion is haunted by Olive C. Spence, former designer and owner of the mansion. She is a ghost who allows herself to be seen on occasion by Seymour Hope the occupant of the mansion.
The mansion is currently owned by Seymour’s parents who abandoned him there when they went of Europe for a lecture tour about the paranormal.
Grumply is having a terrible time trying to write his book. He thinks Seymour is interrupting him, but it’s really Olive.
At first, Olive and Seymour don’t want Grumply in the house and try to make him leave. Grumply doesn’t believe in ghosts, but eventually Olive brings him around.
Through conversations with Olive written on Grumply’s computer, they eventually come to love each other. The three of them (including Seymour) decide to work together to write 3 chapters of the book. Those readers who want the next 3 chapters send in money for them. The money is enough for Seymour to buy the mansion from his parents who had intended to demolish it.
The house is spared and the three occupants, plus Shadow the cat, continue to live there as a family.
Book 2 - Over My Dead Body
Backstory: Seymour Hope, age 11, was abandoned by his parents at 43 Old Cemetery Road when they left for France. Ignatius B. Grumply lives at the house known as Spence Mansion ever since he rented it from the Hopes one summer. Olive C. Spence is a ghost who formerly owned the mansion and now haunts until she gets a book published. The three friends are working on a new book. They give away the first chapters and collect money from people who want the rest of the story.
Dick Tater discovers that Grumply and Seymour live illegally at the mansion. He has Grumply put in the Home for the Deranged for life and Seymour put in the city orphanage until he’s 18 or his parents come to get him.
Tater declares that there will be no more Halloween and that all ghost story books should be burned.
The challenge for Olive, Ignatius, and Seymour is to get the book published even though they are separated. Olive and Iggy do the writing while Seymour does the illustrations.
Olive intends to use her unpublished manuscripts from many years ago to satisfy their customers.
Olive helps Seymour escape the orphanage and Iggy escape the asylum in M. Balm’s bookmobile that visits weekly.
Tater tries to exhume Olive’s body but finds a locked coffin. Olive opens it with her key and finds her manuscripts. She also finds her itching powder which she puts down Tater’s pants. Tater is carried away to the asylum after acting very strangely.
Olive discovers that her manuscripts aren’t scary, so they decide to tell the story of scary Mr. Tater instead; i.e., this book.
Olive and Iggy adopt Seymour just before his parents, who don’t really want him, return on October 31.
Book 3 - Till Death Do Us Bark
Olive, Mr. Grumply, and Seymour live at Spence Mansion. They need to finish the next 3 chapters of 43 Old Cemetery Road by Thanksgiving.
Seymour finds a dog named Secret who used to belong to Noah Breth. Mr. Breth died recently. His two grown children, Kitty and Kanine, constantly fight and each expect to receive their father’s inheritance.
Noah hid the inheritance and gave his children a riddle to help them find it.
M. Balm, the librarian, finds a 1909-S VDB penny which is worth several thousand dollars.
Seymour keeps it secret from Olive and Mr. Grumply that he knows who Secret belonged to. He suggests writing the next 3 chapters about Secret.
Noah turned all his wealth into special, valuable coins which are appearing all over town.
To keep Secret, Seymour runs away from home.
Olive leaves the mansion too. She finds a coin (the 4th one) and leaves it for Mr. Grumply.
“Small change can be extremely valuable.” - Ghost of Noah to Mr. Grumply.
The last of 5 coins (worth $5M) is found on Secret’s collar at the reading of Noah’s will.
Kitty and Kanine finally realize that money isn’t everything and decide to turn Breth House into a B&B.
Seymour sold the last coin and invited all subscribers to Ghastly, Illinois, for a “funeral” for Noah Breth at which the next 3 book chapters were read.
Book 4 - The Phantom of the Post Office
The Ghastly post office is being replaced by VEXT-mail, which uses a veil that covers your head and does much more than allow person-to-person communication, on March 1. It doesn’t always work very well though.
Olive, Mr. Grumply, and Seymour are working on the next 3 chapters of 43 Old Cemetery Road when Seymour suddenly gets what Dr. Izzy Dedyet calls the Phantom Flu and lands in the hospital.
The librarian’s niece, Wy Fye, is in town for a visit. She’s addicted to her cell phone so her uncle, M. Balm, takes it away and has her read Phantom of the Opera. She too is stricken by the Phantom Flu and becomes friends with Seymour while in the hospital.
During all of this, a “fan” is writing anonymous letters to Olive, Mr. Grumply, and Seymour warning them that something very bad is going to happen. The flu seems to be part of the warning.
Mr. Grumply hears the postmaster talking about a phantom living under the post office. The phantom uses PO Box 5. Grumply suspects the phantom has been sending the threatening letters. He promised to steal a letter at midnight.
When that time arrived, all letter F’s are missing from computer systems. They are replaced for a while by PH’s.
The phantom tells Grumply that he wants to see Olive a minute before midnight on February 28 at Box 5.
The post office is scheduled to be demolished. Olive suggests having a Wrecking Ball the night of February 28 to celebrate because she now remembers what pain writing letters has caused her over the years.
Wy Fye figures out the parallels between Ghastly’s phantom and the Phantom of the Opera. Olive’s middle name is Christine, just like the Christine in the book that the phantom kidnaps.
At the Wrecking Ball, Olive, Grumply, and Sue Perstishus (the postmaster) meet the phantom as he comes out of Box 5. Seymour and Wy escape from the hospital and meet him too.
The phantom is Weston Peece, Olive’s life-long friend. He failed to deliver an acceptance letter to Olive from a publisher back in 1911. He was moving too slowly because of the flu and so arrived after Olive died.
Olive again believes in letter writing, and the post office is spared the wrecking ball thanks to a text message sent by Wy Fye.
Book 5 - Hollywood, Dead Ahead
Moe Block Busters wants to create a movie from 43 Old Cemetery Road.
Seymour had to audition, but he gets to play himself in the film just like Grumply. Olive is not cast as herself. Instead, Ivana Oscar was selected to play her part.
Phillip D. Rubbish is the director.
Olive and Ivana are disgusted with Rubbish and the movie. They get together to do something about it. Ivana claims she loves Rubbish.
Seymour has become conceited. Grumply got a new smile that doesn’t look very good or work very well; it gave him a lisp.
As part of her contract, Ivana must die.
Myra Manes becomes director when Rubbish admits he can’t cause the death of Ivana.
At the first rehearsal, Myra intends to kill Ivana, but Olive foils all the attempts. Then she cuts Myra’s (fake) hair until she gives in and admits her guilt. Myra and Rubbish are arrested.
The good guys all decide to make a movie called Hollywood, Dead Ahead which will star Ivana and be directed by Seymour.
Book 6 - Greetings from the Graveyard
Grumply’s former love, Nadia S. Richenov, finds out how famous he is, but Grumply isn’t interested in her anymore. Olive comes up with the idea of creating greeting cards - Greetings from the Graveyard - for occasions such as this.
Rob Z. Lott and Liza Lott escape from prison and rent a cottage (using the names Ben and Mia Bizzy) from M. Balm in Ghastly.
Art Smart, host of What’s It Worth? Is in town. Residents can find out if their possessions are worth a lot of money or not.
Nadia anonymously hires Seymour to draw pictures of a young Grumply. He needs the money to buy a Father’s Day present. She wants to use the pictures in a tell-all book about Grumply.
The Bizzys set up a security shop (because of recent robberies) called Get Bizzy.
Art Smart says a painting of Olive is worth $5M.
Ben and Mia want to install a security system at Spence Mansion, but Olive wants to try to get her butler, Thomas Leeves (T. Leeves), to return instead.
Grumply plans to give the painting to Nadia in exchange for her not publishing the book. But first he wants Seymour to create a copy of the painting in 10 days.
Liza steals the love letters and a $10,000 check from the publisher from Nadia.
Nadia gets a “ransom” note about the love letters. She agrees to give the thief the painting.
Nadia has her publisher create another copy of the painting so she can exchange it for the letters. She thinks that they can then sell the painting for $5M that she gets from Grumply.
After both paintings are delivered, both Nadia and Mia write to Art Smart to have it examined. Smart declares them both forgeries.
Ben, Mia, Nadia, and publisher Paige Turner all try to steal the original painting, but they end up tearing it in quarters. This painting was not the original either. T. Leeves had recently painted another and hidden his original in the basement. “The butler did it.”
Book 7 - The Loch Ness Punster
Grumply’s uncle dies without any other relatives, so Seymour(?) inherits Grumply Castle on Loch Ness. Grumply doesn’t want to travel, so Seymour and Olive plan to go to Scotland. Before they leave, Seymour gets Mr. Poe the giant tortoise from the library for the summer. Seymour sneaks Mr. Poe onto the airplane.
The pet store owner didn’t want Mr. Poe to be lent out because he’s worth $10,000. Grumply tries to get tortoise insurance from the new guy in town, Garren Teed.
Grumply’s Uncle Ian who had died comes to visit him as a ghost with unfinished business.
Macon Deals wants to buy Grumply Castle to build Loch Vegas. To start with, he asks Dewey D. Zine to make a water slide on the lake.
Seymour doesn’t want to sell, so Deals tries to steal the tortoise so Seymour will need the money from the sale to buy the tortoise back.
The economy at Loch Ness is really bad, so the Queen of England sets up a contest to encourage people to make it better.
Grumply tells his Uncle Ian about the summer vacation in Florida when he was 12. He had to be carried off the high dive because he was too scared to move. He thought that vacation ended early because of this. Ian tells him it was really because of Hurricane Betsy. Grumply’s experience that year is what made him grumpy ever after. Realizing this, Ian convinces him to go to Scotland to tell Olive and Seymour all about it.
Mr. Poe (who belonged to Olive long ago) is missing. He decides to sell the castle to Deals to pay for the tortoise. Seymour thinks he might be in the lake and takes a canoe to look for him.
Deals wants to be first to go down the water slide at midnight, but Grumply tries to go down just before him. So Deals drives the bulldozer (intended for the castle) into the lake to try to knock it down. So Grumply jumps into the water from the top instead. Deals was arrested for endangering people and a tortoise.
Olive had been hoping Seymour would take Mr. Poe along because she had gotten him from Loch Ness years ago and wanted him to return home. Mr. Poe will stay at Grumply Castle which will become a Laughitorium and home of the laughing tortoise.
Grumply is afraid that Olive will leave now that her unfinished business of publishing a book is done, so he asks her to marry him. She agrees.
