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a_reader_is_me2009-06-24 12:10 am
anehan) wrote in a_reader_is_me2009-06-24 12:10 am
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Book post: The Changeover, by Margaret Mahy
Title: The Changeover
Author: Margaret Mahy
Number of pages: 214
Genre: Fantasy, young adult
Book number/Goal: 4 of 20 to be read during the summer.
Review: The Changeover is "a supernatural romance", thus combining two of my favourite genres in one book. Laura Chant has always known that Sorry Carlisle is a witch, and when her younger brother Jacko is being sucked dry of his life force by the sinister Carmody Braque, she asks for Sorry's help. She gets entangled with the eccentric Carlisle family of witches and finds out that the only way she can help her brother is by "changing over", i.e. by becoming a witch herself. If that wasn't confusing enough, Laura must also handle the growing relationship between herself and the enigmatic Sorry.
Mahy won the Carnegie Medal for this book in 1984, which, IMO, was well-deserved. The characters are well-drawn; Laura is on the brink of adulthood and her confusion over it and the situation she finds herself in are very believably described, and Sorry for his part is equal parts an enigmatic witch and an uncertain teenager. The characters teeter between childhood and adulthood, and underneath the supernatural elements, The Changeover is really a novel about growing up.
Author: Margaret Mahy
Number of pages: 214
Genre: Fantasy, young adult
Book number/Goal: 4 of 20 to be read during the summer.
Review: The Changeover is "a supernatural romance", thus combining two of my favourite genres in one book. Laura Chant has always known that Sorry Carlisle is a witch, and when her younger brother Jacko is being sucked dry of his life force by the sinister Carmody Braque, she asks for Sorry's help. She gets entangled with the eccentric Carlisle family of witches and finds out that the only way she can help her brother is by "changing over", i.e. by becoming a witch herself. If that wasn't confusing enough, Laura must also handle the growing relationship between herself and the enigmatic Sorry.
Mahy won the Carnegie Medal for this book in 1984, which, IMO, was well-deserved. The characters are well-drawn; Laura is on the brink of adulthood and her confusion over it and the situation she finds herself in are very believably described, and Sorry for his part is equal parts an enigmatic witch and an uncertain teenager. The characters teeter between childhood and adulthood, and underneath the supernatural elements, The Changeover is really a novel about growing up.