Before her death, the wonderful author Eva Ibbotson (Journey to the River Sea is just gorgeous) planned an outline for a new story with her son Toby Ibbotson. This book is the finished product.
Daniel and his friend Charlotte live in Markham Street, a quiet cul-de-sac. Unbeknownst to all the residents there, Jack Bluffit, head of the city's Department of Planning, is planning to bulldoze the whole area and erect a sparkly new shopping centre in its place. When Daniel and Charlotte find out about it, they try their best to stop the demolitions.
Meanwhile, three Great Hagges decide that the ghosts of today are just not scary enough, and so set up Mountwood School for Ghosts. There they teach them how to literally scare humans to death.
When Daniel and Charlotte's actions to stop the building work fail, they decide to seek the help of the three Great Hagges and their ghostly students. Surely that will put a stop to all the devastation?
While I really enjoyed this book, it almost felt like 2 separate stories - one of the two children, and one about the ghosts. It's only really at the end that the two come together. I must admit that I rather preferred the story of Daniel and Charlotte. I lost a bit of interest in all the different ghosts and their stories from the past. But that said, I finished it in a day and a half and would recommend it to our customers.
As a bookseller and a parent, you know you're safe with a Michael Morpurgo book. I would have quite happily passed this straight to my 11-yr-old without reading it first, but a)she has far too many books to read already (but I guess I do too) and b) I wanted to read it first!
The book must be one of Morpurgo's longest - 437 pages! Even though some passages were, I thought, a little over-long, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Yet again, Morpurgo draws on fact to create a brilliant piece of story-telling. It is 1915. Merry lives in New York with her mum and dad, but her dad has gone to join the war. They soon get news from him that he has been injured and is recovering in a hospital in London. Merry and her mama know immediately that they must go to be with him, and so they book a cabin on the passenger ship 'The Lusitania', ignoring the warnings from other family members about how the war is being fought both on land and at sea. They should have listened to the warnings, as just as the ship approaches Ireland, disaster strikes.
In the Isles of Scilly, Alfie and his dad, Jim, are out in their little sailing boat trying to find some mackerel to take back to Alfie's mum. They sail past the uninhabited island of St Helen's, and hear a very strange sound coming from a disused and derelict building. On investigation, they find a young girl, half starved, frightened and injured. She is unable to talk, so they take her home to tend to her injuries and to feed her. She remains mute and appears not to know who she is or where she has come from. Alfie and his parents decide to keep the girl with them until she recovers, but soon the villagers start talking and accusing and start to turn against them. Why has this silent young girl stirred up such anger amongst the villagers, and how will they all learn the true story of how she got to be on the island?
Another wonderful book from the master of storytelling.
I'd kept reading about this book, and what made me want to read it myself was that it was about a girl being trapped in a boy's body, but written for 10-11year olds. Usually, something with that subject matter would immediately be classed in the teen section as it would undoubtedly be about a teen with teen content. What a breath of fresh air then, to have a uniquely-themed issue book written for a younger audience.
Grayson's parents died in a car crash when he was very young, and so he now lives with his Aunt and Uncle. Grayson already knows that he wants to be a girl (in fact he has felt that he has always been a girl), he yearns to wear girls' clothes and do things that girls do. It is not something he has just decided, it is just who he is. However, of course what holds him back is fear - fear of the reaction of others. He takes his first step - he auditions for a female role in the school play. Unfortunately this has more repercussions than he could have imagined, and it is not just Grayson that ends up getting hurt.
This is a wonderful and moving book about gender, identity, acceptance, bullying, and understanding. I think it is a welcome move for an author to tackle such a subject and lay it open for a younger audience to read and understand; to accept that everyone has a right to be who they want to be, without any repercussions. The underlying message is that you have to be afraid in order to be brave, and once you are brave, you can do anything.
For older readers, check out The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson.
I was very excited about reading this, as I had really enjoyed the first book in the series, The Screaming Staircase. I was not disappointed. It was great to be reunited with Tony, Lucy and George and follow them on to their next case.
There have been strange ghostly sightings at a derelict sanatorium, and at a grave at Kensal Green cemetery. Lockwood & Co are hired to investigate, but to their dismay their greatest business rivals, the Fittes agency, are also hired to work with them. The case turns into a battle of wits as they race each other to solve the case, but more importantly, to try to stay alive. A relic from book one, the titular Whispering Skull, plays a big part in their case - both a help and a hindrance. And what of the strange, secret room in Tony's house which Lucy and George are forbidden to enter?
The story is captivating, the ghostly scenes are full of suspense, but my favourite bits are the really humorous parts when Tony, Lucy and George are talking amongst themselves. There are some great one-liners, and some brilliant put-downs, mostly about poor George. I really hope a new character who appears in this book, Flo, reappears in the next one. She's brillliant. There are two things that I can't get out of my head while I'm reading these books: 1) they are set in modern-day London - I keep visualising Victorian times; 2) Lucy is the narrator - I keep getting Tony's voice in my head!
I finished this far too quickly, which of course just means I'll have even longer to wait for the third in the series!
