The Time of the Ghost
by Diana Wynne Jones

In a strange, magical mystery that will keep you guessing (and on the edge of your seat) till the very end, the author of many of my favorite books introduces us to four sisters—Cart, Sally, Imogen, and Fenella—who live a life of acute neglect in the house adjacent to an English boys’ school. Their parents give all their time to the boys and none to the girls—nor any money, and how the girls must scrounge even for food and clothing is amazing.

But while the girls live in their pigsty of a house, bickering amongst themselves & inventing the worship of a pretend goddess named Monigan & befriending a few of the schoolboys on the sly, weird things are going on. For Monigan, it turns out, is real...and a wrong-headed boy, bent on doing mischief, and a rebellious girl, bent on getting attention for herself, set a horrible chain of events in motion...and through it all, the ghost of one of the sisters, thrown back from seven years in the future, tries to find out which of the sisters she is, and how she can change the past before Monigan claims the life she has been promised.

I was fascinated by the children, revolted by the adults, and moved by the ghost’s, er, soul-searching in this tale. But most of all, I was entertained by yet another unique fantasy world created by a master storyteller.

Occult content advisory: some very foolish children perform some sort-of-pagan rituals, mostly in play, and for the most part they suffer consequences illustrative of how dangerous it is to meddle with things one doesn’t understand. I wouldn’t be surpised, though, if some of you took issue with this book’s use of religious and irreligious rituals. Forewarned is forearmed.

Robbie Fischer
Arizona USA

Recommended Age: 14+

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