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A review by celsius273
The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle by Janet Fox
3.0
Scary and engaging, but in a subtle way. At times exciting and haunting but - and unfortunately - lackluster in some areas.
The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle (isn’t this like the caricature of a children’s book title!) follows Kat Bateson and her friends in England during WWII. Like many other children, they’re sent away from the city in order to stay safe from the Blitz - in their case, Rookskill Castle in rural Scotland. Things seem alright when they first arrive at the manor, but then the children (well mostly Kat) stumble upon strange occurrences that indicate that they may be harboring a Nazi spy and that there’s a weird sort of supernatural going on. Things come to a climax when the other children staying at the castle start disappearing under flimsy explanations from the Lady of the manor. Kat and her friends spend the rest of the book trying to keep themselves from also “disappearing.”
See? That sounds pretty cool, but - and this may be my biggest problem with this book - the blurb literally gives that all away! I’m sitting there reading (listening) and Kat and her friends are wondering what the hell is going on and I’m just like “welp… spies and magic and disappearing children. That’s what’s going on.” It kind of took out the fun of the mystery, and since that’s kind of the basis for the whole plot, well you can see why it was a bit disappointing.
That’s not to say that the big picture mystery was everything though. I did enjoy the flashbacks to Lady Eleanor’s history, though even those basically came out and screamed “warning, supernatural-shit ahead” to me as the reader. I also liked how big the issue of who to trust became. I mean I also like it when good/bad are really clear, but keeping Kat and co. guessing was pretty captivating as well. Who will side with the Lady when Kat gets in trouble? What are the teacher’s motives? Who is wandering around the grounds at night and could they be someone the children know? These questions pervade Kat’s thoughts through the book.
In that same vein though, Kat was a bit ridiculous at times. Come to think of it, she’s unrealistic and annoying on quite a few occasions. There’s this strange subplot with a German spy and while I get why it’s included - WWII and all - is it really realistic that Kat can solve codes in like two seconds? This math oriented mindset leaves Kat to be obstinate in her refusal to believe the supernatural. That there’s a “logical explanation” is something she says all the time and it gets pretty annoying quickly. Then there was the way where she kept feeling like everyone was snapping at her for no reason when she’s clearly being a brat to them. Fine, she’s a teen and this is totally teen behavior (guilty here…) but I still wanted to reach in and slap her out of her selfishness.
On the whole, I loved the concept of the book and the little parts that we learn about the magic are also cool. However there seems to be too much trying to go on that things come across as a bit disjointed or slow at times - slow in that it’s doing a lot of jumping around or sitting around that it feels like nothing is happening - and also results in a rather rushed ending. Is this a standalone? Goodreads seems to think so but there’s so much to explore in this world I think. We’ll wait and see.
The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle (isn’t this like the caricature of a children’s book title!) follows Kat Bateson and her friends in England during WWII. Like many other children, they’re sent away from the city in order to stay safe from the Blitz - in their case, Rookskill Castle in rural Scotland. Things seem alright when they first arrive at the manor, but then the children (well mostly Kat) stumble upon strange occurrences that indicate that they may be harboring a Nazi spy
Spoiler
like a coding machineSee? That sounds pretty cool, but - and this may be my biggest problem with this book - the blurb literally gives that all away! I’m sitting there reading (listening) and Kat and her friends are wondering what the hell is going on and I’m just like “welp… spies and magic and disappearing children. That’s what’s going on.” It kind of took out the fun of the mystery, and since that’s kind of the basis for the whole plot, well you can see why it was a bit disappointing.
That’s not to say that the big picture mystery was everything though. I did enjoy the flashbacks to Lady Eleanor’s history, though even those basically came out and screamed “warning, supernatural-shit ahead” to me as the reader. I also liked how big the issue of who to trust became. I mean I also like it when good/bad are really clear, but keeping Kat and co. guessing was pretty captivating as well. Who will side with the Lady when Kat gets in trouble? What are the teacher’s motives? Who is wandering around the grounds at night and could they be someone the children know? These questions pervade Kat’s thoughts through the book.
In that same vein though, Kat was a bit ridiculous at times. Come to think of it, she’s unrealistic and annoying on quite a few occasions. There’s this strange subplot with a German spy and while I get why it’s included - WWII and all - is it really realistic that Kat can solve codes in like two seconds? This math oriented mindset leaves Kat to be obstinate in her refusal to believe the supernatural. That there’s a “logical explanation” is something she says all the time and it gets pretty annoying quickly. Then there was the way where she kept feeling like everyone was snapping at her for no reason when she’s clearly being a brat to them. Fine, she’s a teen and this is totally teen behavior (guilty here…) but I still wanted to reach in and slap her out of her selfishness.
On the whole, I loved the concept of the book and the little parts that we learn about the magic are also cool. However there seems to be too much trying to go on that things come across as a bit disjointed or slow at times - slow in that it’s doing a lot of jumping around or sitting around that it feels like nothing is happening - and also results in a rather rushed ending. Is this a standalone? Goodreads seems to think so but there’s so much to explore in this world I think. We’ll wait and see.