The Boggart
Written by Susan Cooper
Reviewed by Spenser C. (age 11)
The book I read is called "The Boggart", written by Susan Cooper. It is mostly about two kids, Emily and Jessup Volnik and a mysterious creature called The Boggart.
This book starts when Emily and Jessup's family inherits a remote, crumbling castle in Scotland from their great-great uncle who just passed away. The Castle is called Castle Keep. In Castle Keep, there is a Boggart. A Boggart is a mischievous spirit who likes to play tricks on people. Later, the Boggart is shipped to Toronto, Canada in a rolltop desk for Emily. There, the Boggart makes trouble in Toronto. In Scotland, people believed that there is magic. However in Toronto, no one believes that there is magic. Therefore, when The Boggart makes furniture fly, he creates havoc. Emily is blamed for this by Dr. William Stigmore. He thinks that Emily is creating psychic to move things around. This makes Emily's life worse. Although The Boggart loves Toronto, it is home sick. The Boggart puts itself into a computer game, The Black Hole. Jessup puts the game on a floppy and sends it to Tommy Cameron who lives near Castle Keep in Scotland. Tommy Cameron already knows about the Boggart and releases him from his imprisonment in the floppy disk.
My favorite part in the book is when the Boggart goes into Emily and Jessup dad's theater computer light board. The Boggart made it so the lights on stage display the colors of the spectrum. While it did that, Emily got up closer because she realized that the Boggart is doing it. After that, the Boggart did something with the lights that made everyone relax. When some people sang a sad song, the Boggart came out of the computer light board and made the theater all dark.
I have no favorite character in this book because they all seem serious. None of them actually makes me laugh. The reason is that the Boggart does not do things that make me laugh. It only does things that would make itself happy. If the Boggart were to make me laugh, then he would be my favorite character.
If I could improve this book, I would. First, I would make the time of the year 9999 because there would be computers that are more sophisticated. That would make it harder for the Boggart to get into a game and harder to use the light board. It would make the Boggart create even more trouble. I would also make the castle that Jessup's family inherited is on another planet. That way, it would be harder for the Boggart to get home. I would also make it so Jessup copied the file to the floppy that contained the Boggart, but not move the file. That way, there would be a sequel to this book. I would call the sequel "The Boggart's Twin." I would also make it have more characters. If there were more characters, the Boggart would have more people to harass. It would make it so then Dr. Stigmore would think that there were more poltergeists. The kids' life would get more terrible and Dr. Stigmore would put them in a sanitarium. I want to make it so then the Boggart made more trouble. That way, Toronto would be a terrible mess and the book would be better.
On a scale to 1 through 10, I would give this book a 5. The reason is because it is right in the middle. I did not give this book a 1 because it is not the most boring book I have read. I did not give it a 10 because it is not a very exciting book. I would not recommend this book to anyone because it seems very boring and uninteresting without my suggestions. My ideas would make the book better.