• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Bridie and her brother and sister love to sit up late, listening to the adults trade stories. One stormy night the talk is not only about the price of fish, ghosts and pirates, but also about Poor Keye, a neighbor in hospital who had always loved these storied nights. A loud bang and the sound of his familiar shuffling footsteps suggests that perhaps he is home after all, and has come to join the gathering. But when Bridie’s mother goes to welcome him, Poor Keye is nowhere to be found. The next morning a telegram arrives with shocking news.

A writer and storyteller, Charis Cotter has published several critically acclaimed children's books, including a series of biographies about extraordinary children and a book about international ghosts. Toronto Between the Wars: Life in the City 1919-1939 received the 2005 Heritage Toronto Award of Excellence. Most recently, The Swallow: A Ghost Story won the 2015 IODE Violet Downey Book Award, was named an Honour Book by the Canadian Library Association for 2015, and has been nominated for four 2016 children's choice awards across Canada. She lives in Western Bay, NL.

Charis Cotter's profile page

Born and raised in Newfoundland, Jenny Dwyer has been steeped in the region's culture her entire life. An artist and a teacher, she has received several local honours for her compelling, hyper-realistic artwork. Footsteps in Bay de Verde is her first illustrated book. 

She lives in Maddox Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, in a house overlooking the sea.

Jenny Dwyer's profile page

• Winner, 2022 Bruneau Family Children's/Young Adult Literature Award
• Long-listed, 2022 Bruneau Family Children's/Young Adult Literature Award (one of the NL Book Awards)

“Although brief, and told from a six-year-old’s viewpoint, the story is creepy enough to be best suited for slightly older children and sits somewhere between conventional picture book and middle-grade markets. A quirky production from Newfoundland micropress Running the Goat, Footsteps in Bay de Verde may be slight but it doesn’t patronize its young audience – and will likely send a few shivers down older spines, too.”

Quill & Quire

"Meticulous pacing, a richly atmospheric ambiance, details that perfectly capture time and place." —Atlantic Books Today (Halifax, NS)

“A good old-fashioned ghost story sure to deliver spine tingles…Scrumptiously spooky.”

Kirkus Reviews

“Charis Cotter has carved a rich, specific niche for her writing: the eerie, the uncanny, pitched to a younger audience.”

The Telegram

"There's a delightful lilt and wonderful pacing as events unfold. Beautiful spare writing. Authentic characters and pitch perfect dialogue. Spooky without being terrifying...The book is beautifully designed with warm, realistic illustrations that give the look and feel of times past. A concise, well-rounded story written simply enough for children, yet eloquent and classic enough to appeal to adults."
— Jury statement

“Based on a story that Newfoundland storyteller Brian Walsh told Cotter about something that happened to his own mother in the 1920s, this is a wonderfully spine-tingling book. Dwyer’s illustrations create just the right atmosphere for this haunting tale of the supernatural.”

The Globe and Mail

"Cotter recreates a ghostly tale that will leave readers with goosebumps ... Footsteps in Bay de Verde is a great story to curl up to with family and friends, but, of course, with a light on."—Julia Pitre, CM: Canadian Review of Materials XXVII.6, Book Review

“This picture book is the perfect addition to a summer evening spent by a campfire. Well paced and perfectly worded to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Share with a group of listeners, but be prepared for frightened listeners to scooch in closer, grab tightly to one another’s arms and stare wide eyed and breathless until the last page is turned. Adults and children can share in this exceptionally creepy tale enhanced by the incredible illustrations by Jenny Dwyer.”

Atlantic Book Reviews

"Through her limited palette of cool blues, greys and black, with just the mere touch of red—in a ribbon, on a candy, a stamp on a telegram—Jenny Dwyer upholds the eeriness of the night and the revelation of the next morning. Even on this hot summer day as I review the story, I feel that chill and the mysteriousness of something experienced but unexplained... For another haunting picture book set in old Newfoundland, Footsteps in Bay de Verde makes the real just a little bit dark and a whole lot mysterious." —CanLit for LittleCanadians