The Haunting (The Secret of Glendunny #1)

Draws readers deeply into a mystical world and leaves them wishing for more. 

It's a marvelous adventure, and Lasky's gorgeous text has a proper, old-fashioned tone that lends gravity to the fantastical plot. There is an astonishingly detailed mythology, language, and history to the beaver world, and larger, relevant themes of immigration and racism are organically worked in... an enchanting introduction to a wonderful, new natural world

In this ghostly tale involving interdependent animal species residing around notoriously haunted pond Glendunny, Lasky (Faceless) focuses on a colony of beavers that settled in Scotland, having fled England to avoid the "two-legs," or humans, who prize them for their pelts. When beaver kit Dunwattle is startled awake by a cued-white two-leg's ghost, he flees into uncharted waters all the way to England, where he's seen and photographed by a human, breaking a rule known as vysculf that is punishable by expulsion or death. Dunwattle consults his beaver best friend, Locksley, and trusted swan Elsinore, a royal counselor, who swear to keep his secret. Complicating things are two beavers--one disgruntled and power-hungry, another obsessed with the British monarchy--a bloodthirsty lynx, and two desperate ghosts of humans who died in a massacre a millennium ago and wish to reach heaven. The taut third-person narrative alternates between pond residents, culminating in a gruesome, puzzlingly abrupt ending, but themes of belonging and friendship are well conveyed throughout, as are the complexities of this industrious world of creatures. Ages 8-12. Agent: Brenda Bowen, Book Group. (Mar.)

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