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Reviewed by:
  • The Beasts of Clawstone Castle
  • Loretta Gaffney
Ibbotson, Eva The Beasts of Clawstone Castle; illus. by Kevin Hawkes. Dutton, 2006243p ISBN 0-525-47719-5$16.99 R Gr. 4-7

When Madlyn and her younger brother, Rollo, are sent to live for the summer with their great-aunt and great-uncle, they quickly fall in love with rough-around-the-edges Clawstone Castle, and they are fascinated by the mystical white cattle that graze on nearby grounds. Unfortunately, Clawstone doesn't have much in the way of tourist attractions (exhibition would upset the cows) and if the elderly couple can't stay afloat financially, they'll lose both land and cattle to a greedy, conniving neighbor. With the help of their reclusive cousin, the intrepid children spring into action, recruiting a handful of frightening but friendly ghosts to haunt Clawstone, including a jilted bride with a bleeding shotgun wound, a swashbuckling romantic with a rat perpetually gnawing at his heart, and a pair of disembodied dancing feet. Clawstone does record tourist business until the cattle are diagnosed with Klappert's disease and taken away to be slaughtered; the adults despair, but the children and the ghosts suspect foul play. Ibbotson's flair for gentle parody is spliced here with goofy, good-hearted ghosts, to mostly charming effect; a steady, warm heart of sympathy for the characters, whether they be alive, dead, or animal, beats steadily under the wink-wink, nudge-nudge jocularity. The plot becomes too madcap for its own narrative good when it hares off on tangents detailing the backstories of quirky tertiary characters, but when Ibbotson focuses on the interactions between the ghosts and the children she is at her best—she even creates a sympathetic character in the disembodied feet. Hawkes' full-page pen and ink illustrations add further vintage ambience to the story with their old-fashioned borders and hatch [End Page 75] and stipple textures. Give this to readers who don't mind ghostly adventures in their quaint English countrysides, or to those who like ghosts with a heart.

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