Margaret Mahy is one of the few authors who has won the Carnegie Medal twice. One of the winning titles was The Changeover, which I read and discussed recently on both the Supernatural Underground:

Book of Magic: “The Changeover” by Margaret Mahy

and here (on m’own blog):

More Thoughts On Margaret Mahy’s “The Changeover” — A Tale of “Layers”

The other (and first, chronologically) winning title was The Haunting, published in 1982. Like The Changeover, it has been re-released this year by Hachette.

I read The Changeover as YA fiction, whereas The Haunting, like its protagonist, eight-year-old Barney, is Junior fiction. Initially, however, I was struck by the essential similarities between the two stories: both protagonists, Laura in The Changeover, and Barney, have had prior supernatural experiences which re-manifest for this critical adventure.

Family relationships are also key to the story in both books. Laura’s parents are divorced, although both are still living, and Barney’s mother is dead although he has a new stepmother. And in his dead mother’s family, the estrangement between his grandmother and one of his uncles led to the disappearance of the latter.

The story is also very much about Barney and the wider family coming to terms with their magical inheritance and those, like Barney, who have supernatural abilities.

This is not to suggest that The Haunting is a by-the-numbers Fantasy—or “formulaic Margaret Mahy” either, for that matter. Long before China Mieville wrote Un Lun Dun for that very purpose, Mahy upends some of the standard Fantasy tropes in this book. My personal view is that she does it far more subtly than Mieville and in a way that will expand the young reader’s horizons to alternate possibilities without tarnishing their enjoyment of the story. Disbelief, after all, must not be suspended and with Mahy, there’s no question of the latter happening.

So-o, what are some of these tropes that she so gently overturns? Firstly, there’s the time-honoured tradition of the wicked stepmother, which definitely doesn’t apply here. Barney adores his stepmother, Claire, and the feeling is mutual. Another significant overturning is the tradition of the “chosen hero”. To say more would be a major spoiler but it’s definitely something for keen-eyed Fantasy readers to look out for.

I enjoyed this aspect of the story—but most of all I just loved the characters, particularly Barney and his sisters, Tabitha the non-stop talker, and Troy, who is her polar opposite. I also thought both their parents, stepmother Claire and their father, were well-drawn, as was Cole, the errant black sheep of the Scholar family. As for the children’s Great-Granny Scholar, she was a fabulous character and one who warrants the Times’ Literary Supplement’s encomium that this is “a psychological thriller”—albeit one eminently suitable for its junior readership.

Am I recommending this book? I certainly am and believe it may appeal to readers of Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman’s junior fiction, and potentially JK Rowling, particularly the early Harry Potter novels.