Susan Cooper is best known for her five-part "The Dark is Rising" series, a sequence of fantasy novels that any self-respecting lover of fantasy should have on their bookshelf. Among her lesser known works is the time-slip adventure "King of Shadows", a picture book trilogy based on Celtic legends, and two stories chronicling the doings of a Scottish boggart: "The Boggart" and its sequel "The Boggart and the Monster".

In the Western Highlands of Scotland lives a mysterious and mischievous spirit known as a boggart. Living at the ancient Castle Keep (but often moving about the countryside), the creature of Wild Magic delights in the confusion and amusement that its daily tricks create. But when the elderly Duncan MacDevon dies in his sleep, the inheritance of the castle falls to his great-nephew Robert Volnik and his family living in Toronto, Canada.

The Volnik children are twelve-year old Emily and nine-year old computer-genius Jessup, who are surprised and delighted at the prospect at a holiday in Scotland. Their visit involves meeting Tommy Cameron (who secretly knows all about the boggart), seal-watching, sight-seeing and rationalising the strange occurrences at the Keep. As the holiday draws to a close each sibling is promised one bit of furniture each before the castle is sold: and Emily chooses a beautiful old writing desk. Unbeknownst to all, it is here that the boggart has curled itself up to slumber, and ends up travelling with them to Toronto.

The collision of the modern world and Wild Magic brings exactly what you'd expect: havoc. Exploring the technological wonders of this new world whilst keeping to its mandate of mischief making, the boggart eventually causes some rather dangerous mischief. The Volnik family don't know what to make of the surge in bad luck and strange phenomena, but eventually the children stumble to the idea of a boggart thanks to the wisdom of their father's theatre crew. Now their only concern is how to return the homesick boggart back to his rightful home: magic has long since seeped from the world, so perhaps a technological solution can be found...

"The Boggart" is a beautifully written, thoughtful and interesting book, taking a unique premise and exploring it in both a contemporary and more old-fashioned setting. Cooper is wonderful at describing countryside, circumstances and human reactions to both the mundane and the supernatural. Poignancy is also her speciality; witness a scene in which a grieving boggart affects the sleep of the entire community, who experience the shared dream of an ancient funeral. It's both eerie and poetic.

However, Cooper is on less firmer ground when she reaches Toronto. Although the boggart reacts to the change in scenery amusingly, and the chaos that it creates carries a somewhat darker edge to it, she also introduces several characters and situations that are not dealt with in a particular satisfactory manner: such as Jessup's groups of friends who (with the exception of Barry) have no real place in the story, and the character of Doctor Stigmore. He witnesses some of the boggart's behaviour and believes that it is Emily's doing through psychokinesis; he begins to harass the family and notifies a television show, but both of these plot threads are left hanging, with no resolution at all as to what happens.

One thing I did appreciate was how this story fits in nicely with "The Dark is Rising" sequence, where Cooper goes into more detail on the nature of Wild Magic. Although there is no mention of Old Ones or any other components of that series, "The Boggart" does fit into the `literary world' that she created there. The kids are interesting and realistic, the parents sympathetic and delightfully eccentric, and the Boggart is a character that shines throughout the book; a true creature of wild and untamed magic.

Long before J. K. Rowling gave us the spooky Boggarts that inhabit dark places and take the form of your darkest fears, Susan Cooper brought us this spritely, loveable, intriguing figure of Scottish legend. Look out for its sequel "The Boggart and the Monster".

(Juvenile fantasy) A mischievous spirit inhabits an old castle in Scotland and accidentally gets transported to technologically modern Toronto. Mayhem ensues. How can he get home? This was mildly entertaining, but plenty of apparently smart adults who do surprisingly unsmart things. [Sigh.] I hate that kind of thing. (It reminds me of the scene in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe when Peter and Susan ask the Professor if he thinks Lucy is mad, given that she thinks she's found a magical world. The Professor says, If you think Lucy is more honest than Edmund, then why would you think her mad just because she's found some other world? Forgive the poor paraphrase.)

Potentially offensive material: nothing.

emeli and jessup had came back from castle keep they brought a desk with them. later in the book emeli relize that there is a boggart living in there house. the boggart play trick them and he thins to somewhere else and jessup and emeli got in trouble. when the boggart turn into a spider was because he did not wanted them to see him. the boggart also got trap in the train when emeli close the drawerthe boggart couldn't got out.

The main thing that happens in the book is that the Boggart is causing trouble and mischief to the Volnicks family after being shipped to Toronto, Canada from his original home,Castle Keep. He mainly concentrates on Emily and most of all Jessup. The Boggart gooes back home eventually through a copied computer disc. Castle Keep sure has changed but still satisfies the Boggart like it did before.