How To Catch A Bogle

How To Catch A Bogle by Catherine Jinks, 313 pages

Birdie is a bogler’s apprentice, which means she is the bait to trap the bogle.  Birdie has a wonderful singing voice and she is smart and fast.  Alfred Bunce is a good bogler.  He’s only ever lost one apprentice to a bogle and has no intention of ever losing another.  Since bogles love to eat children and usually ignore adults entirely, only children work as bait.  A young woman of quality, Miss Eames, is interested in creatures such as bogles and asks the two of them to allow her to come along on a bogle hunt.  Because she plans to pay them, they agree.  When Miss Eames realizes that bogles are real, not just folklore, and how dangerous they are, she begins a campaign to get Birdie into another line of work before she is hurt or killed.  Birdie staunchly refuses, especially since orphans have begun disappearing and it’s up to her and Mr. Bunce to sort it out, since it is almost certainly the work of a bogle.  This was a really good scary fantasy adventure for kids.