Eva Ibbotson "dishes up an irresistible brew of magical high jinks and adventure," declared a contributor for Publishers Weekly. The author's tongue-in-cheek ghost stories for a young-adult audience have become a presence in bookshops on both sides of the Atlantic, standard reading fare for those going beyond the Harry Potter books. Though Ibbotson got her start in 1979, long before J. K. Rowling had conceived of her wizard books, Ibbotson benefited from what another Publishers Weekly contributor called the "Harry Potter halo effect." In the late 1990s, her books began to take off; titles such as Which Witch", Not Just a Witch, The Secret of Platform 13, Dial a Ghost, a nd Island of the Aunts appealed to young readers with a taste for the macabre and a healthy sense of humor. With her 2002 Journey to the River Sea, winner of the Smarties Prize in England and shortlist ed for...