![]() ![]() “Why do the best things always happen to other people and not to a promising writer?” 8 “I think and think all the time, and I’ve never fainted – not once.” She looked over at Barney enviously. “If people fainted from too much thinking I’d scarcely ever be conscious,” Tabitha began at once. The family relationships are so complex you end up feeling you've read a saga when the book does not get even close to 200 pages. The wonderful stepmother is pregnant and a stay-at-home-parent and the father is distant in a way that is no longer acceptable but was standard at the time. The good stepmother, the decisive girls and the shy sensitive boy, all make for wonderful role reversals but Mahy doesn't overdo it either. Barney's real issue is that he is being haunted by a recently rediscovered grand-uncle, Cole but the way the haunting is dealt with is the way any problem a child of eight has is deal with, you tell your siblings and your parents and they help you. ![]() Barney adores his step-mother and is a bit in awe of both his older sisters, loud future novelist Tabitha and silent bookish Troy. ![]() It's told from the perspective of young Barney, for whom his family is the center of his world. ![]()
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