Publisher Description

In the grounds of Castlemaine is a peculiar mound, hidden by yew trees. People say it's the grave of Wild Robert…
Heather finds the mound when she tries to escape the hordes of tourists who invade the stately home where she lives.

"Wild Robert, I wish you were really under there!" she cries. "You could come out and deal with the tourists!"

All of a sudden, there is a smell like earth and strange spices. A voice says, "Did somebody call?"

Heather gets her wish, and nothing is ever the same again!

Wild Robert is a gentle, charming ghost, who is half a magician [on his mother's side]. He returns after 350 years and is horrified by the antics of the tourists at his once home Castlemaine House. Since he's a ghost who haunts by day, he plays some wonderfully wicked pratical jokes which drive the tourists away…

Notes

A Diana Wynne Jones story, first published in 1989, which is now part of the Red Storybook series.

Author Biography

Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) spent her childhood in Essex and began writing fantasy novels for children in the 1970s. With her unique combination of magic, humour and imagination, she enthralled generations of children and adults with her work. She won the Guardian Award in 1977 with Charmed Life, was runner-up for the Children's Book Award in 1981 and was twice runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.

Kirkus US Review

Wild Robert provides the fizz in this outing from master fantasist Jones, the first US edition of a 1989 novella. Heather is significantly put out by living at Castlemaine, the stately home where her mum and dad are curators, and where, every morning, the tourists descend, driving Heather out. When she seeks solitude at the legendary grave of the witch, Wild Robert, she compounds her miseries tenfold by inadvertently summoning him. Charismatic, determined, and thoroughly wicked, in short order he has turned the older tourists into sheep and randy teenagers into satyrs, and has menaced a group of schoolchildren with monstrous frozen treats-but Heather finds the results of Wild Robert's magic more alarming than appealing for all its aptness. The brevity of the story limits the action to one day-the effective period of Wild Robert's magic-but it's a busy one, at the end of which both Heather and the reader will see the pathos behind Wild Robert's frenetic chaos. Minor Jones to be sure, but still entirely intelligent and engaging. (Fiction. 8-12) (Kirkus Reviews)

Feature

30 b/w illus * Diana Wynne Jones title first published in1989 * Magic and ghosts - perfect for the younger age group

Details