Another Eva Ibbotson triumph, though this one is rather more outlandish than the others I have read thus far. Because there are ghosts in this one, and everyone is cool with there being ghosts, and moreover — spoiler alert for a thirty-year-old kids’ book — at the end, the ghosts become celebrities.
I mean, sure. Okay.
Despite this nonsensicalness, however, I really enjoyed this book. Even if a twelve-year-old Scottish laird is permitted to sell his ancestral castle to an American millionaire. Even if said twelve-year-old then moves in with the American millionaire and his allegedly frail daughter once the castle is transported across the Atlantic. Even if there is a kidnapping subplot enacted by a woman so enamoured of Hitler that she renames herself “Adolpha.”
Even if there are ghosts and everyone is cool with there being ghosts.
It takes a singular talent to make a story of such silliness enjoyable to the adult brain (or, such I have the audacity to claim). But, as has been amply proven to me repeatedly this year, Eva Ibbotson had just such a talent.
I am just sorry it took me so long to discover it for myself.
SCORECARD
TBR DAY 299: The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood, aka The Haunting of Hiram by Eva Ibbotson
GENRE: Children’s Fiction
PUBLISHED: 1987
TIME ON THE TBR: ~13 years.
PURCHASED FROM: Op shop.
KEEP: Yep!
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