To begin with, these two spooky graded readers is one of the best ways to learn and improve your English level while becoming familiarized with traditional ghost stories from the United States and England.
The first one, published by Oxford Bookworms Library, is a collection of the best tales from the American author Edgar Allan Poe. The best stories are The Black Cat and The Masque of the Red Death. The Black Cat denounces the problem of alcoholism and animal rights with the black cat being a powerful ghost to denounce the evil truth. Then, the Masque of the Red Death is relevant nowadays after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the book could have more reading activities and some famous works like the Raven should have been included.
Moving on, Penguin Readers with the book The Man with Two Shadows and Other Ghost Stories is entertaining and provides students with useful vocabulary and functional language. All ghost stories have a mysterious and surprising ending, however, from my opinion, the best ones are The Ghost Detective by Mark Lemon, 1866, and The Ghost in the Bank of England by an Anonymous writer, 1879. The Ghost Detective presents an interesting concept of ghosts living in portraits that can give signals to denounce a murder while the Ghost in the Bank of England shows the popular superstition of lucky and unlucky desks in a workplace.
Finally, the best thing about the two spooky graded readers is the wonderful illustrations drawn with classic pen-and-ink shading techniques like stippling and hatching. Moreover, the activities may be repetitive but is a good way to learn specific vocabulary and how to find and understand the main ideas and details in the stories.
