Book #11
The Spook's Apprentice ~ Joseph Delaney
I heard about this series quite some time ago but I never got around to reading them till recently. I was in the library looking for some other books and noticed that they had the first four books of this series so I thought I should take advantage of that and took the lot. I was quite looking forward to reading them because they're set in Lancashire - although it's just called the County in the books - and it can be really nice to read something that's set in the place where you live.
The main plot of this first book is that a young lad by the name of Thomas J. Ward is being apprenticed to the local Spook. This is a job which involves ridding the County of all manner of dark beings such as ghosts, ghasts, boggarts and witches. This being Lancashire, there are plenty of them to deal with. Especially witches. There does seem to be much use made of local folklore and legends such as boggarts and the Pendle witches who are referred to several times. Old Mother Malkin is presumably named for Malkin Tower where the main Pendle witches lived.
The book is quite well written and it's obvious that the author not only knows Lancashire very well but loves it too. The descriptions of the scenery and natural features of the county are very well done and this helps to not only set the scene but also adds to the story itself. The landscape - and weather - are almost a character in its own right. The towns and villages mentioned are certainly renamed versions of actual places. Chipenden where the Spook has his summer house is probably Chipping and Caster is almost certainly Lancaster. Some other places are referred to by their normal names such as Anglezarke but then again, that's such an usual name that it almost sounds made up anyway!
The actual characters in the book are fairly numerous but there are 3 or 4 main ones. Tom as the apprentice is the story teller, the book is written from his point of view and so we learn what's going on as he does. He can be really really stupid and seems to spend the first half of the book doing all the things he's been explicitly told not to do and making really daft decisions which made me want to shake him. The Spook is a very mysterious character who doesn't give a lot away and expects that Tom will do exactly what he's told without question. There's more to him than meets the eye certainly, but I presume that his past is going to be spread over the course of the series. The third main character is Alice, a young girl who is caught in between being good and being bad. It's hard to tell what is going on in her head and she's constantly taking Tom - and therefore the reader - by surprise by doing something contrary to what he expected. The characterisation is quite good although there were times that they annoyed me by doing something that was blatantly stupid. I also found Alice's dialect to be rather confusing. I'm not sure where she was supposed to be from but she seemed to talk more like a Cockney than a Lancashire lass. There is some use of dialect in the book, such as referring to willow trees as withy trees, but it would have been nice to have a bit more indication of that in their speech.
Although the book is written for older children, I found it to be a little spinechilling and certainly gruesome. The tale of the previous apprentice who had his fingers eaten by a boggart and died from shock and loss of blood is certainly not something I wanted to read before bed, neither is the incident earlier on of the haunted house where Tom is forced to spend the night. People who are particularly sensitive or imaginative may find that some aspects of this book are a little intense for them, I know that it made me feel a little uneasy even though I made sure to read it during the day.
My only real complaint is with regards to the Spook's attitude to women and girls. Several times throughout the book, he tells Tom that they are not to be trusted because they are flighty and will trick him in an attempt to get him to do their bidding. The comment about not trusting girls in pointy shoes because they are witches is just ridiculous. I know that the book is probably set in an unenlightened period in history, but even so, these are not the kind of opinions that should be given to young people. Despite this, it is a good book and one that I would recommend, especially to other Lancashire people.
I heard about this series quite some time ago but I never got around to reading them till recently. I was in the library looking for some other books and noticed that they had the first four books of this series so I thought I should take advantage of that and took the lot. I was quite looking forward to reading them because they're set in Lancashire - although it's just called the County in the books - and it can be really nice to read something that's set in the place where you live.
The main plot of this first book is that a young lad by the name of Thomas J. Ward is being apprenticed to the local Spook. This is a job which involves ridding the County of all manner of dark beings such as ghosts, ghasts, boggarts and witches. This being Lancashire, there are plenty of them to deal with. Especially witches. There does seem to be much use made of local folklore and legends such as boggarts and the Pendle witches who are referred to several times. Old Mother Malkin is presumably named for Malkin Tower where the main Pendle witches lived.
The book is quite well written and it's obvious that the author not only knows Lancashire very well but loves it too. The descriptions of the scenery and natural features of the county are very well done and this helps to not only set the scene but also adds to the story itself. The landscape - and weather - are almost a character in its own right. The towns and villages mentioned are certainly renamed versions of actual places. Chipenden where the Spook has his summer house is probably Chipping and Caster is almost certainly Lancaster. Some other places are referred to by their normal names such as Anglezarke but then again, that's such an usual name that it almost sounds made up anyway!
The actual characters in the book are fairly numerous but there are 3 or 4 main ones. Tom as the apprentice is the story teller, the book is written from his point of view and so we learn what's going on as he does. He can be really really stupid and seems to spend the first half of the book doing all the things he's been explicitly told not to do and making really daft decisions which made me want to shake him. The Spook is a very mysterious character who doesn't give a lot away and expects that Tom will do exactly what he's told without question. There's more to him than meets the eye certainly, but I presume that his past is going to be spread over the course of the series. The third main character is Alice, a young girl who is caught in between being good and being bad. It's hard to tell what is going on in her head and she's constantly taking Tom - and therefore the reader - by surprise by doing something contrary to what he expected. The characterisation is quite good although there were times that they annoyed me by doing something that was blatantly stupid. I also found Alice's dialect to be rather confusing. I'm not sure where she was supposed to be from but she seemed to talk more like a Cockney than a Lancashire lass. There is some use of dialect in the book, such as referring to willow trees as withy trees, but it would have been nice to have a bit more indication of that in their speech.
Although the book is written for older children, I found it to be a little spinechilling and certainly gruesome. The tale of the previous apprentice who had his fingers eaten by a boggart and died from shock and loss of blood is certainly not something I wanted to read before bed, neither is the incident earlier on of the haunted house where Tom is forced to spend the night. People who are particularly sensitive or imaginative may find that some aspects of this book are a little intense for them, I know that it made me feel a little uneasy even though I made sure to read it during the day.
My only real complaint is with regards to the Spook's attitude to women and girls. Several times throughout the book, he tells Tom that they are not to be trusted because they are flighty and will trick him in an attempt to get him to do their bidding. The comment about not trusting girls in pointy shoes because they are witches is just ridiculous. I know that the book is probably set in an unenlightened period in history, but even so, these are not the kind of opinions that should be given to young people. Despite this, it is a good book and one that I would recommend, especially to other Lancashire people.
