Mahy, Margaret Books

Don't Read This

Margaret Mahy

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Editorial Review:

Featuring stories by 11 renowned writers from Australia, Israel, Zimbabwe, England, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Canada and Spain, here is an anthology of creepy stories just for children that have never been published in the United States.

Changeover: A Supernatural Romance (Point)

Margaret Mahy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

One of my teenage favorites 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I read this book as a teenager when it originally came out in 1984. The greatest compliment that I can give The Changeover is that twenty+ years later, I still reread it sometimes--and I still enjoy it. I can't say that about too many of my childhood books.

The Changeover was a rare bird back in mid-eighties--there weren't too many well-written books about magic and the supernatural with teenage girls as the protagonists in those days. This was a genre that I adored and could never get enough of back then. So this novel was an instant favorite.

There are certain books that you read when you are young that shape the kind of person that you become--not necessarily in a large way, but in subtle way. The Changeover was one of these books for me. I didn't realize it when I read the book at fourteen, but The Changeover is a metaphor for changing from childhood to adulthood--from becoming a girl to becoming a woman. And this book really captures that--all the insecurity and the fear, and even the pleasure that you feel as a girl in your own new-found, womanly power. I guess this book appealed to me so much because it made me feel better about a lot of the things I was going through at fourteen; it gave me a certain confidence in myself: I wasn't just getting older--I was becoming a different being.

I have read other comments about this book and I agree with the reviewers that say they want a sequel. I still think about Laura from time to time--she and I were the same age when the book came out--and I often wonder what became of her and what type of woman she became.

Editorial Review:

"When three-year-old Jacko is stricken with a baffling illness, his teenage sister Laura, a 'sensitive,' is the only one to recognize that demonic possession is the true cause of his malady. . . . The beautiful characters grow with readers and the style is beautiful but ornate. An extraordinarily rich and sensitive novel."--School Library Journal, starred review. Winner of the Carnegie Medal; ALA Notable Book; ALA Best Book for Young Adiults; School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; Booklist Editor's Choice.

The Haunting (Puffin Books)

Margaret Mahy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Whither wander you, spirit? 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Some people say that the leap taken by adult authors to writing books for children (Elmore Leonard, Michael Chabon, and Salman Rushdie are all good examples of this) is a harsh and difficult one. I say a far more difficult leap is that from young adult author to children's. Oh it may not sound difficult at first. But where the adult-to-child author can fudge the ages of their readers, the young-adult-to-child author must be aware at all times of the specific mindset of their audience. This may result in beautiful writing or watered down material that's too old for the intended audience. Margaret Mahy is a premiere young adult author. If you've any sense, you'll rush out and buy her "Catalogue of the Universe" at once without blinking. What's most remarkable about Mahy though is her penchant for occasionally drifting into children's works as well. These might range from the beautiful picture book, "Ultra-Violet Catastrophe" (a favorite of mine) to the slightly older chapter book, "The Haunting". Like all her tales, "The Haunting" focuses on relationships between family members and the bond that ties us to our relatives. It has the familiar creepy quality of her other works, but is age appropriate and (to be frank) thrilling.

Barney has a problem. He knows he's about to be haunted by a ghost and there's nothing he can do about it. This isn't anything new for Barney, of course. Years ago he was haunted by three different ghosts and they were all quite friendly. Now, however, there's a blond boy in blue crushed velvet following him around and saying, "Barnaby's dead! I'm going to be very lonely". Since Barney's full name is Barnaby, he's not exactly pleased with this message. Soon other strange things start to happen to the boy and his instincts tell him he's helpless in the face of them. Fortunately, he has an incredibly loving family to rely on instead. There's Clair, his beloved stepmother who is pregnant with her first child. And there's his sister Tabitha, plump and happy and ready to talk a mile a minute. There's Barney's father and his mysterious sister Troy who never says much but always seems to be most unhappy. With the help of his family members, as well as an assortment of great-uncles, grandparents, and one wicked old great-grandmother, Barney slowly learns to unravel the mystery of what exactly is haunting him.

More than any other children's author I've read, Margaret Mahy makes me want to quote long phrases of her prose to passing strangers on the street. Just listen to some of the sentences in this book. About Barney's evil great-grandma Scolar: "I don't mind her being wrinkled.... It's just that all her wrinkles are so angry. She's like a wall with furious swear words scribbled all over it". Or this section that describes the neatness of Troy's room: "Troy's homework was set out on her desk as immaculately as if she had been going to do a heart operation on it. Her tiny writing ran across sheets of paper as if a regiment of minute insects with inky feet had marched with enormous precision over the pages". Mahy's a master at the fabulous descriptive passage. Her characters too are imbued with a kind of life and verve you only hope you could find in a good children's book. Better still, they really like one another. I mean, they're incredibly fond of one another's thoughts and feelings. Most wonderful of all is Barney's pure unadulterated love for his stepmother. He adores Clair with all his heart and constantly fears that she'll die in childbirth just as his mother did. Most of the tension that comes from this book is based on characters keeping secrets from other characters because they don't want to hurt them. Fortunately, everything gets patched up beautifully by the end.

If you'd like a book for your kid that's slightly more advanced than the average "Super Diaper Baby" tale, try "The Haunting" out on them. Not only is it written with clarity and precision but it's a great story about ghosts, magicians, and the dangers of stifling what you really are inside. If you want an open-minded book that believes that people should be themselves, if in moderation, "The Haunting" is for you. Another Margaret Mahy creation that'll blow you away.

Editorial Review:

After a shy and rather withdrawn eight-year-old begins receiving frightening supernatural images and messages, he learns about a family legacy which could be considered a curse or a rare gift.

The Changeover (Puffin Teenage Fiction)

Margaret Mahy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Really great read 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I remember, when I was a teen, loving Margaret Mahy's books. This one and The Tricksters were my favorites. I could still go back to them today and love them. Mahy's a phenomenal writer. She really draws you into the characters' lives and makes you want to be them or help them as much as you can. In this book, The Changeover, a young girl must battle an evil sorcerer-type man who is sucking the soul of her young brother. The scariest thing about this book is how real it felt. It takes place in New Zealand or Australia (I forget, it's been a while), so the customs and local signposts are different, but the feel of fear for a sibling; or when one knows s/he's done something against one's parent's wishes... It's universal. It's a really great read.

Fingers on the Back of the Neck

Margaret Mahy

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The Riddle of the Frozen Phantom

Margaret Mahy

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The Horribly Haunted School (Galaxy Children's Large Print)

Margaret Mahy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Marvelous Madcap Misadventures Masterminded By Margaret Mahy 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Recipe for delightful middle grade novel: Mix a couple of ghosts, a Jigaw Puzzle championship, a school that teaches the tenets of Common Sense, an honest used-car salesman, and an 800-page novel that vanished during the Great Toasted Cheese Disaster. Sprinkle with verbal wordplay. Add a brisk pace and plenty of laughs. Wait until the last moment to garnish with surprise (but satisfying) ending. Sure to be a favorite among young readers - who may even want a second helping.

Editorial Review:

Allergic to ghosts who always make him sneeze, Monty knows as soon as he sets foot in the Brinsley Codd School for Sensible Thought that it is haunted but he can't seem to convince his teacher, the awful Mr. Sogbucket, or the school's principal.

Operation Terror (Surfers)

Margaret Mahy

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The Tricksters (Puffin Teenage Fiction)

Margaret Mahy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

"In the End There's No Separation..." 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Margaret Mahy is one of the few (or perhaps the only) world-renowned New Zealand author, whose work has won many awards, as well as the Carnegie Medal for "The Haunting" and "The Changeover". As good as these books are my personal favourite is "The Tricksters", written for a slightly older audience and filled with her trademark New Zealand scenery, supernatural occurrences, family dramas and the awakening of a young person to adulthood. Older readers shouldn't be put off by the claims that this is a "young adult" novel, as any intelligent reader over the age of thirteen should experience Mahy's best work.

The Hamilton family gather at their beach house Carnival's Hide to celebrate Christmas; parents Jack and Naomi, eldest siblings Charlie and Christobel and younger children Benny and Serena. Seventeen-year-old Harry (short for Ariadne) is smack-dab in the centre and suffers the fate of the middle-child, overshadowed by the glamorous Christabel and starved for attention thanks to the younger two. To alleviate her frustration, Harry is writing a story - a wonderful story about dangerous men and voluptuous women that she keeps secret in her attic bedroom.

But there are other things to keep her busy, such as the added presence of Englishman Anthony Hesketh who is to share the family Christmas away from the more traditional winter holiday of his home-country and Christabel's best friend Emma and her young daughter Tibby. Furthermore, the house itself has a strange history of odd happenings concerning the drowning of Teddy Carnival years ago, and Harry herself is privy to a family secret that she knows could destroy her happy, comfortable home.

And then three brothers appear on the scene, claiming to be descendants of Teddy Carnival and charming most of the Hamilton family. But Harry knows there is something strange about Ovid, Felix and Hadfield - something that is deeply connected to the past, the house, her own story and the dynamics of family life. But who are they really? What is this strange connection to Felix that she feels? And do Ovid's threats of ruining her family have any weight? (Watch out reading some of the other reviews, as they give away the secret behind the brothers, something that should not be known till the book reveals it).

Like all good literature, the book is filled with many themes and meanings that demand close and attentive reading. Mahy's language is dense and poetic (reminding me a little of Diana Wynne Jones's adult novels) which involves full participation from the reader to understand what's going on, and will probably require more than one reading to fully appreciate the layering and clue-sprinkling that Mahy spreads throughout the novel. The growth from childhood to womanhood, the power of imagination and storytelling, the secrets and inner-dynamics of a family, the meeting of the supernatural and the mundane, and a creepy ghost/murder mystery - all this is packed into this immensely rich and intriguing novel.

Hopefully this won't come across as an insult to the other reviewers, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that so many of them were non-New Zealanders. When you come from a country that has so few authors of its own, ninety-nine percent of your reading list are from authors overseas and you never really expect your own country's books to be read anywhere other than in New Zealand. So, whether you're from New Zealand, England, Australia, America or anywhere else that Amazon.com ships out books, make sure you read this complex, mysterious, unforgettable novel.

Dangerous Spaces

Margaret Mahy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Interesting Read 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Anthea, an orphaned girl who now lives with her cousin Flora, begins to have dreams of a strange place called Viridian and a boy called Griff, who lures her onto the end, the 'hole in the middle of the zero'. Flora in her turn dreams of Griff's brother, whom she helps to find Griff. As Anthea goes deeper into the dreams, she begins to lose touch with the real world. This is a beautifully written book, and I especially loved the world of Viridian. However, I found it a little bit confusing at times. Still, I give it five stars for its interesting content. The author also writes about friction between the cousins, who are totally different in looks and personality, and I found this interesting. A good children's book.

Editorial Review:

Flora has always known that her house is haunted. But things have taken a sinister turn since her orphaned cousin Anthea moved in. Frightening scenes are played out in the night--and in the girls' dreams. Although they don't get along, the two must work together to escape their nightmares--before they get trapped forever.