This book, published in 1982, won the Carnegie Medal and is a nice spooky tale for middle grade children, with a difference. It is quite short being a children's book from the era when such books were fairly short, but tells the tale of a quiet boy, Barney, who just wants to be normal but to whom extraordinary things begin to happen. It starts when he is coming home from school and is confronted on the way by what appears to be a lifesize paper model of a Victorian boy which then tells him Barnaby is dead and it is going to be very lonely. I did like the description of the figure swinging this way and that and then spinning round faster and faster until it vanishes in flakes of blue paper - not your average ghost!

The story takes a twist as Barney begins to realise that it is perhaps not a ghost at all but that he is being haunted by a living mysterious member of his family, a member who had uncanny powers and was in effect banished. This person now wants Barney for his own and is coming back, inflicting Barney with all kinds of 'hauntings' such as audible footsteps and visions of what is witnessed on the journey.

There is a nice spooky atmosphere, and the characters are also well realised, with even Barney's talkative sister, a would-be novelist, covering over as interesting rather than annoying. And there is a good twist at the end and a nice acknowledgement of the tensions within even happy families. ( )

Barney is being haunted by his possibly-dead Great Uncle Cole, but he doesn't want to tell anyone because it would just upset them.
A neat premise with a couple of fun twists and a flash of lovely writing here and there, but it felt like more of a quick sketch than a fully fleshed-out story. That's a shame; if the characters had been given more depth and the story more time and detail, this could have been a real corker. ( )

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Barney is the youngest in his family of two sisters, a dad and a stepmother. Just an average boy in an average family. When he starts having strange dreams, sightings and experiences that coincide with the death of a great-uncle he isn't sure what to think or do.

His older sister, Troy, is distant and a bit reclusive. Tabitha, his middle sister is a note-jotting novelist in training who wants to know everything that is going on. Does he dare let his parents know what strange things are going on?

What is the tie-in with Great-uncle Barnaby, who Barney is named for and another estranged great-uncle Cole, who is rumoured to be dead?

Margaret Mahy give enough clues, as the story goes along, to keep you reading and guessing and yet not quite solving this mystery. Fun to read to yourself, but could be fun to read aloud or have read aloud with a child. Spooky but not frightening.

A Goodread for me. ( )