9 June, 2001: The Boggart
This wasn't at all what I was expecting; Susan Cooper is best known for her epic The Dark is Rising series, one of the best (and earliest) of the young adult subgenre involving epic magic bursting out into the normal world. The Boggart, on the other hand, is a little trifle about the eponymous mischievous spirit accidentally shipped from its ancestral home in Scotland to the bustling metropolis of Toronto, and its dealings with two children there. The kids bicker believably, and the book is enjoyable enough -- and made the more so by some laughably antiquated computer technology; Cooper clearly isn't at ease describing the technology, so why bother? -- but unlike The Grey King, it wasn't something I'll ever want to read again.