The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewin Buzbee

Description:

Meg Pickel’s older brother, Orion, has disappeared. One night, she steals out to look for him, and makes two surprising discoveries: She stumbles upon a séance that she suspects involves Orion, and she meets the author Charles Dickens, also unable to sleep, and roaming the London streets. He is a customer of Meg’s father, who owns a print shop, and a family friend. Mr. Dickens fears that the children of London aren’t safe, and is trying to solve the mystery of so many disappearances. If he can, then perhaps he’ll be able to write once again.
With stunning black-and-white illustrations by Greg Ruth, here is a literary mystery that celebrates the power of books, and brings to life one of the world’s best-loved authors (Goodreads).

My Thoughts:

I have seen this book in my local library number of times and each time I would overlook it. I was never on my list of book s to read. for the most part when I go to the library I have specific books in mind and that is what I am on the lookout for. I might notice some other books that I might be interested but for the most part I overlook them. This time I decided to give e this books a try.

I was intrigued about this story because Charles Dickens is one of the main characters in the book. I am a big fan of Charles Dickenson’s works, I have read all of his books, but it’s been a while. I wanted to see what the author came up in this story. I have to say that for the most part this was a good read and I did enjoy it. However I did feel that it needed more excitement or more action if you will. Based on the description of the book I was expecting more from this book, I was expecting more action, more intrigue. 

The author does a good job with the story telling and writing. Writing and character development was very good. I really liked how the author incorporated the life of Charles Dickens and child labour into the story. This book touches on a very sensitive issue that was big problem at that time and that is problem today in third world countries where the kids are forced into child labour in order to survive. 

All the characters were very much liked, Meg Pickel was a very brave and smart girl. I liked Meg she was very outspoken and caring, she just wanted to find her brother and same all the other children that were forced into labour. I liked that the author does not concentrate a lot on the issues of male versus female place in the world for this time period. Girls cannot do this or that because they are girls. It’s not that these issues did not matter to the author because they did since he does touch on it, but he does not let that drive the plot. Rather Meg is more free and not confined into the role of female. I really like how Meg and Orion were close as sister and brother. But you only hear from Meg how the two of them were close, we do not see this at the end of the book when she sees saves her brother. I was waiting for the reunion between Meg and Orion but it did not happen. It was anticlimactic.

Overall this was a good read and I enjoyed it very much, but I did not love it. the writing was very good, story line was alright, characters were well developed. I give this books 3/5 STARS – Happy Reading everyone.