Scholastic book: "Spook"

• Title: Spook
• Author: Jane Little. I can't find much biographical information about her. Her other books included Sneaker Hill and The Philosopher's Stone.
• Illustrator: Suzanne Kesteloo Larsen. I can't find much on her, either. Help would be welcome! For both Little and Kesteloo Larsen, it seems that Spook is their best-known work.
• Back cover excerpt: "Poor Spook! He's the only dog in the world who belongs to a witch! And she'd rather have a cat. No wonder she's so mean to him."
• Publisher: Scholastic Book Services (TX 1001)
• Cover price: 45 cents
• Year: 1965. This is Scholastic's 1967 second printing
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 80
• Little's dedication: "To my family, with love" 
• Excerpt #1: Then abruptly she stopped dead in her tracks, a look of horror settling on her face. Spook craned his neck around the curtain to see what she was staring at. It was a large marmalade cat, strolling down the hall directly toward Grimalda.
• Excerpt #2: When he stopped at last, he was an enormous spider on eight gigantic legs, with two fangs curved like buffalo horns and eight eyes as big as soup plates.
• Is this book kind of creepy? For a kid's book, absolutely.
• Rating on Goodreads: 4.26 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review excerpt: In 2018, Kati wrote: "This is such an adorable book! My boyfriend told me it was one of the first *actual books* he ever read, and I love anything even remotely related to Halloween, so I just started reading it one day when I saw it hanging around at home. It’s so sweet. Grimalda is a 'mean, scary' witch without actually being an animal abuser toward little Spook. She’s just butthurt cuz she’s allergic to cats."
• Is that the first appearance of "butthurt" on Papergreat? Yes indeed.
• Rating on Amazon: 4.6 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2011, Sherry wrote: "It is a cute little book, but the reason I only gave it 3 stars is because I do not care for witches."
• Other reviews and memories: A grinchy writeup by Kirkus, a 2017 review on Vintage Toys and Books, and a Facebook post on Vintage Scholastic Books last month featuring a lot of comments.
• And one final view: Writing on the Postcards from La-La Land blog in 2011, NeriSiren, a self-described "Bookwyrm of the Benthic Zone," concludes: "Spook is a very entertaining story, with villains who are goofy enough to offset their scary qualities. Other than a few exposition-heavy passages, the dialogue is believable and the descriptions create vivid, tangible scenes. This would be a fun book for teachers to read to their students the week before Halloween, a chapter or two each day."

Here are some more of the illustrations by Suzanne Kesteloo Larsen:

And here's Mercury posing with Spook. She's always great for this specific season.