A Plague of Bogles

 


A Plague of Bogles
by Catherine Jinks
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015.  321 pgs. Fantasy

     Second in Catherine Jinks' delightful Bogles' series, following How to Catch a Bogle, A Plague of Bogles finds young Jem hoping to catch on as a bogler's apprentice with Alfred Bunce since Birdie, his former apprentice has been taken into the custody and care of Miss Eames and becoming a genteel young thing. Alfred is understandably reluctant to get any youngster into the bogling business since bogles eat children, but the only way to capture and destroy them is with a child as bait. Jem hangs around until a plague of bogles erupts in Newgate - an unusual occurrence, since bogles usually work alone - and Albert has to take action. Why are so many, the boglers wonder? and why are they so icky and powerful? Birdie and Miss Eames make a token appearance, but this time the show is mostly Jem's, who besides dealing with such monsters as a bogle who arms were attached to "a great hairy bladder, propped up on leg's like a toad's and crowned by a head bigger than a bull," is hunting his old boss Sarah Pickles to get revenge for her betrayal. When these two quests cross, all Perdition breaks loose in a dazzling ending that will have readers clammering for the next book in the series coming out this Fall.  A terrific Victorian fantasy/mystery series for children of strong courage, grades five and up.