After a rousing winter meeting with Gayle Richardson in which she gave attendees a HUGE list of new books to read I ran out and found as many of them as I could. The Beasts of Clawstone Castle is my first read on the list and I am thrilled with it. To be fair it was my first "listen" while moving back into my office after our basement flooded.

I'd love to put this book on MTV's movie list, but I wonder if American audiences would be able to handle it. The ghosts in Clawstone are tremendously well developed characters with gruesome or frightful ends. Ends which Ms. Ibbotson describes in great detail. The end of the book hinges on some really disgusting cruelty to animals. I don't think it is gratuituous, but I'm not sure I could look at it on screen. If I hadn't watched The Departed last night I think I'd be having nightmares about the end of Clawstone instead of the thugs of South Boston (to be honest I had a hard time getting to sleep BECAUSE of having just watched The Departed, but my trusty subconscious had me dreaming about getting to eat the best most expensive candy in the world. Candy dreams are almost as good as nightmare preventing pudding.)

I love England, ghosts, and cows. Maybe this book was written just for me. I also love truly nefarious villains, siblings that are nice to each other, and modern books that acknowledge/use the internet, but find a way to leave our characters without its help believably.

Any kid that digs the ghosts in Harry Potter and are budding environmentalists will love this book. It would make a great winter road trip book for families. The ending packs a lot of information that might befuddle parents so you'll want your kids to explain it to you, but you might want to be there for the kids when some scary animal testing passages come up.

Cover-wise: score one for England. David Roberts did the cover (above) for the British printing. THIS is a perfect cover for the book. The American one I'm not as thrilled about as it seems sweeter and tamer than this funny, deliciously ghastly book.

Gayle also recommended Which Witch? which I saw a young girl reading at a yummy neighborhood coffee shop. I wanted to ask her about it, but her mom seemed to be in a hurry. Here's hoping she also reads The Beasts of Clawstone Castle.

Jaime