What with all the demands upon your time, you may never have stopped to consider the grave problem of homelessness amongst the dead. (Who knows, you may not find much time to ponder the crisis as regards the living either.) But Eva Ibbotson thinks about it. In fact, she has devoted 195 pages of her time to the plight of house-hunting haunters in her always humorous, albeit sometimes gruesome, Dial-a-Ghost.
Good Intentions
And it's lucky for the dead folks of England that two well-intentioned Londoners also worry about the frightening shortage of suitable haunter habitations. Determined to ease if not eradicate this terrible social ill, Miss Pringle and Mrs. Mannering tirelessly devote themselves to the task of finding appropriate accommodations for needy specters at their Dial-a-Ghost agency.
Of course, finding the perfect match for all their clients is no mean feat. It just won't do, you know, to send ghastly ghosts into a serene old abbey. Nor would a frightening fortress adorned with shields proclaiming "I Set My Foot Upon My Enemies" suit a gentle, close-knit, loving phantom family. So, these dear ladies take great pains to ensure that their living and dead clients will be entirely satisfied with each other and with their surroundings.
Now, I'm willing to concede that it's altogether possible (not very probable, mind you, but possible) that a young reader may not immediately see where this plot is going to go from here. But I bet if those of you reading this are more than eight years old, you just might be able to guess what the crisis in this plot will be.
Yep, that's right, the old file mix-up schtick.
But, you know what? The predictability didn't much diminish my enjoyment of Dial-a-Ghost. A trip through beautiful scenery is never boring, even if I know where the journey will end, even if I've made the trip a hundred times before. And Ibbotson's tale is a lot like that. It's filled with delightful characters and terrific writing.
Predictable? Yes. But still a pleasant trip.
I'll Even Forgive Her the Orphan Schtick
Now, you know in a book with an orphan, the orphan's just got to win out in the end. I mean, we all have a soft spot for orphans and other underdogs, right?
Yep, orphans are always a safe bet as winning protagonists. From Dickens to Snicket, orphans just guarantee reader sympathy. And Ibbotson falls back on this successful standard to complement her more outlandish and innovative premise of a housing agency for homeless ghosts. It may be a cheap trick, but, hey, it works.
Oliver Smith is Ibbotson's orphan offering in this tale. (So what if Dickens already used the name Oliver, there's no patent on character names, right?)
And Oliver is, unbeknownst to him, heir to the great Snodde-Brittle fortune. (Orphans do tend to be unsuspecting heirs. That's part of the formula, right?)
And, of course, there just have to be scheming, evil relatives who covet the orphan's soon-to-be-inherited fortune for themselves. (Count Olaf, anyone?)
Well, yep, all that stuff's in here. But as I said before, predictability is perfectly pardonable in Ibbotson's hands. (Come to think of it, the same can be said for Handler [aka Lemony Snicket]. They both make predictability inconsequential because of their wonderful writing.)
So, if you enjoy fun characters, terrific writing, and quirky humor, and don't mind not being surprised by plot twists, you and your younglings should thoroughly enjoy Dial-a-Ghost.
Good Grief!
However, if your idea of a wholesome children's novel is one devoid of grief, nastiness, evil intentions and violence, then you may wish to steer clear of Dial-a-Ghost. (Dial-a-Ghost does not sport Snicket's ubiquitous warning labels — so I thought I'd better share this word of caution with you here lest you inadvertently stumble into just a tad more nastiness than you may have bargained for.)
Eva Ibbotson starts Dial-a-Ghost off with a bang:
THE WILKINSON FAMILY became ghosts quite suddenly during the Second World War when a bomb fell on their house.
So, there you have it, some thoroughly charming characters all drop dead in the opening sentence before the story even gets going.
And there's more ...
A mean-spirited, evil-intentioned couple hatch a plot meant to kill or, at the very least, drive insane one of the non-dead protagonists. Think Count Olaf of Lemony Snicket fame and you'll have a fair idea of the base levels to which Fulton and Frieda Snodde-Brittle will stoop in their quest for fortune.
And still more ...
The hard-to-house Sir Pelham and Lady Sabrina de Bone, otherwise known as the Shriekers, and their ghastly ghoul servant are visually appalling specters — Lady de Bone wears chunks of blood-dripping animal flesh as jewelry, smears herself with lard to make her blood-soaked gown shinier, has no nose, and is missing toes. And her personality is even viler than her loathsome appearance — she speaks with delight of torturing and killing kids (and young goats, too).
And yet more ...
There are dead people and dead animals everywhere, scam artists, a hypochondriac, and even a knicker store. (Censor alert: There are Wonderbras in this tale!)
All this may be just a tad too much for the faint of heart. On the other hand, good does win out in the end, and most of the ghosts are really quite sympathetic, despite their peculiar habits.
So, there you have it. Dial-a-Ghost is goofily formulaic, has just enough gore to appeal to sensitive young readers' ghoulish appetites, contains understated social commentary, and is written in Ibbotson's never disappointing fine style. I'd describe Dial-a-Ghost as grisly whimsy. But Philip Pullman perhaps says it best when he describes Ibbotson's writing as displaying "benevolent heartlessness" and "kindly astringency."
Dial-a-Ghost shouldn't give either you or your younglings nightmares, but I'd be surprised if it didn't make you go "Eeeewwe!" at least a time or two, and it will definitely arouse more than a chuckle or three in the process.
The Dial-a-Ghost Agency finds good homes for ghosts. And Fulton and Frieda Snodde-Brittle are looking for a few frightening ghosts to accidentally sca...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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