At a glance
- Our kind of strange friend
- Supernatural storybook character
- Story connection
- Many traditions; our example comes from British literature
A closer look at the story
Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843. The Morgan Library keeps his handwritten manuscript, including changes he made while writing. It is a real object that lets us study how a famous ghost story was created.
Dates to put in your notebook
- 1843Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. His surviving manuscript preserves his revisions.
What the evidence tells us
A manuscript is evidence that an author wrote and revised a story. It is not evidence that the story’s ghosts appeared in real life. A personal account of something strange would need its own details and investigation.
Your turn to investigate
If a curtain moves in a quiet room, what could you check before choosing an explanation?
Where these notes come from
Grown-ups can view sources in the Parent Area.
- Morgan Library & Museum · Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (PDF)
The 1843 manuscript and the author’s visible revisions.
Notes checked September 2026.
A little room to feel safe
Real animals may hide, run away, or become very still when threatened. An opossum can even enter an involuntary, death-like state. A frightened animal needs space, not a closer audience.
Try noticing
Watch without chasing, touching, or testing an animal’s reaction. Let it choose where to go.
- New River Gorge National Park · Virginia opossum
- National Park Service · Watching wildlife
From legend to storybook
The Ghost Who Was Afraid brings this friend into an imaginative story about understanding fear.
Find the forthcoming story on our shelf →Something to look at closely
Keep a storybook clue, then see how a naturalist might interpret it.
Open this friend’s notebook page →
A little research envelope. What is tucked inside?