Nowadays, many of us can understand the way Amanda feels. I know I’ve been there. Her parents are divorced and live on opposite sides of the country. Her mother just married a guy with four kids and moved to a rustic house in the countryside. She has to leave her friends behind, start over in a new school, and put up with four younger siblings for the first time in her life. She would rather live with her father, who lets her do whatever she wants, but she is hurt that he doesn’t want her around. So, she is understandably angry.

Nevertheless, David doesn’t understand Amanda. David is the oldest of the Stanley children. Since his mother died, he has shouldered a lot of responsibility for the younger kids: loud, impulsive Janey; plain-spoken, inquisitive, four-year-old Esther; and Esther’s strange, quiet twin brother, Blair. He is closer in age to Amanda than the others, so they should be friends. But he is too busy holding the family together, and she is too busy trying to tear it apart in a fit of pre-teen rebellion.

Amanda’s rebellion takes the form of an interest in all things occult. Black magic, witchcraft, ghosts, you name it, she’s into it. David and the other kids go along with Amanda’s offer to induct them into the mysteries of the occult, because they think something interesting will happen. But, eventually, David starts to wonder whether the occult is just something Amanda uses to disrupt the household. Then, a visiting repairman tells the children that the house used to be haunted by a poltergeist, and soon strange things start happening again. David starts to wonder whether Amanda is causing these things to happen, too, as a way of getting back at her mother.

Here is a creepy mystery that doesn’t turn out to be as disappointingly simple as many stories of this type. Plus, it is filled with humor, family drama, realistic characters and their complicated relationships. It goes without saying that a big fat “occult content” advisory is in order, as the story unashamedly explores the interest some children take in the occult and the way they imagine it.

In defense of the story, against anyone who would thoughtlessly condemn this book because of this content, I would point out that the “witchcraft” portrayed in this book is an angry girl’s way of striking out at “everyone...for everything.” The real magic of this story comes in the way David, Janie, Tesser, and Blair show Amanda the meaning of love and the possibility of happiness, even in a family whose members don’t always do what you want them to do.

Robbie Fischer
USA

Recommended Age: 12+

11/20/05

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