The Tricksters (Point) [Paperback]

Margaret Mahy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1988 | Series: Point

The Hamiltons gather at their holiday house for their customary celebration of midsummer Christmas in New Zealand. But with the unexpected arrival of three sinister brothers, the Tricksters, reality and the supernatural become inextricably interwoven.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In one of Mahy's best works, three brothers show up at Harry's house and she doesn't know whether they are aspects of her own imagination, or terrifying supernatural forces. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up A Christmas story that takes place on the beach in a sunny New Zealand December. Mahy's fans will not be surprised to learn that it is also a love story in which one of the lovers is a ghost. To most of the Hamilton family, the three young men who drop in on their holiday seem to be ordinary, although eccentric, visitors. To 17-year-old Ariadne (always called Harry), they are much more than that, perhaps ghosts, or even characters come alive from a story she is writing. Mahy has caught the essence of the adolescent's painful separateness; cut off from her childhood, Harry stands alone in her family. Whatever they are, the Tricksters act as a catalyst, drawing Harry out of childhood and causing her to raise the family's tensions and reveal their secrets. A theme touched on in The Changeover: a Supernatural Romance (Atheneum, 1984) reappears here, that of a young girl coming to terms not only with her own sexuality, but with her parents' sexuality as well. The intricate threads of personalities and plot weave together into a fine web of vivid language. Few writers have Mahy's skill at integrating the supernatural with daily life. She manages to enrich each in the process, just as the revelation precipitated by the visitors, painful as it is, ends by enriching the Hamiltons' lives and changing the three spirits as well. Ruth S. Vose, San Francisco Public Library
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks (October 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590415131
• ISBN-13: 978-0590415132
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,047,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Margaret Mahy lives in New Zealand and is internationally acknowledged as one of the most outstanding children's writers today. She is the author of more than two hundred books for children of all ages, two of which have received England's Carnegie Medal and others of which have garnered numerous citations from the American Library Association. She is also the recipient of An Order of New Zealand, the highest honor a citizen can receive. In 2006 she received the Hans Christian Andersen award for her contributions to international children's literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "In the End There's No Separation...", August 23, 2005

By 

R. M. Fisher "Raye" (New Zealand = Middle Earth!) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Tricksters (Paperback)

Margaret Mahy is one of the few (or perhaps the only) world-renowned New Zealand author, whose work has won many awards, as well as the Carnegie Medal for "The Haunting" and "The Changeover". As good as these books are my personal favourite is "The Tricksters", written for a slightly older audience and filled with her trademark New Zealand scenery, supernatural occurrences, family dramas and the awakening of a young person to adulthood. Older readers shouldn't be put off by the claims that this is a "young adult" novel, as any intelligent reader over the age of thirteen should experience Mahy's best work.

The Hamilton family gather at their beach house Carnival's Hide to celebrate Christmas; parents Jack and Naomi, eldest siblings Charlie and Christobel and younger children Benny and Serena. Seventeen-year-old Harry (short for Ariadne) is smack-dab in the centre and suffers the fate of the middle-child, overshadowed by the glamorous Christabel and starved for attention thanks to the younger two. To alleviate her frustration, Harry is writing a story - a wonderful story about dangerous men and voluptuous women that she keeps secret in her attic bedroom.

But there are other things to keep her busy, such as the added presence of Englishman Anthony Hesketh who is to share the family Christmas away from the more traditional winter holiday of his home-country and Christabel's best friend Emma and her young daughter Tibby. Furthermore, the house itself has a strange history of odd happenings concerning the drowning of Teddy Carnival years ago, and Harry herself is privy to a family secret that she knows could destroy her happy, comfortable home.

And then three brothers appear on the scene, claiming to be descendants of Teddy Carnival and charming most of the Hamilton family. But Harry knows there is something strange about Ovid, Felix and Hadfield - something that is deeply connected to the past, the house, her own story and the dynamics of family life. But who are they really? What is this strange connection to Felix that she feels? And do Ovid's threats of ruining her family have any weight? (Watch out reading some of the other reviews, as they give away the secret behind the brothers, something that should not be known till the book reveals it).

Like all good literature, the book is filled with many themes and meanings that demand close and attentive reading. Mahy's language is dense and poetic (reminding me a little of Diana Wynne Jones's adult novels) which involves full participation from the reader to understand what's going on, and will probably require more than one reading to fully appreciate the layering and clue-sprinkling that Mahy spreads throughout the novel. The growth from childhood to womanhood, the power of imagination and storytelling, the secrets and inner-dynamics of a family, the meeting of the supernatural and the mundane, and a creepy ghost/murder mystery - all this is packed into this immensely rich and intriguing novel.

Hopefully this won't come across as an insult to the other reviewers, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that so many of them were non-New Zealanders. When you come from a country that has so few authors of its own, ninety-nine percent of your reading list are from authors overseas and you never really expect your own country's books to be read anywhere other than in New Zealand. So, whether you're from New Zealand, England, Australia, America or anywhere else that Amazon.com ships out books, make sure you read this complex, mysterious, unforgettable novel.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary and evocative work, September 4, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Tricksters (Paperback)

An extraordinary and evocative work of contemporary fantasy that clearly establishes Mahy (when writing for the more mature reader) in the same league as Susan Cooper, William Mayne, Alan Garner, and Peter Dickinson, The Tricksters adds nuanced layer upon layer in its depiction of a girl's sexual and emotional coming of age. I read this book when it first came out, and have returned to it more than once. It is certainly a book that rewards reading at all ages (I'm in my forties now)and I have recommended it successfuly to teenagers, college students, and other adults. It lead me to read Mahy's many other books including Seventeen Kings, Forty-Two Elephants; An Alien in the Family; Memory; The Horribly Haunted School; and The Changeover. These range from picture books to novels, but none fail to deliver a startling, often electric, shock of reappraisal of our individual relationship with the world. In The Tricksters, for example, the three ambiguously identified young men of the title are as palpable or as elusive as the protagonist's own thoughts and feelings are about the role she will play in life, and in her family. The unsettling mixture stirs her longing for innocent childhood with a growing (and appalling) understanding that nothing will be the same again as she grows. Really, a quite remarkable novel... I would most closely compare it with a long overlooked book, Thunder On the Left by Christopher Morley, best known as the author of The Haunted Bookshop. Like Thunder, I foresee that Tricksters will still have devoted readers fifty and seventy-five years from now.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If I were Oprah, I'd pick it for my book club!, November 26, 2000

By 

Kayleigh Jamison "Kayleigh Jamison" (Baltimore-Washington Metro Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tricksters (Paperback)

On the surface The Tricksters is a great young adult novel. For the training literary reader who can dig deeper than the simple plot will allow, this book provides so much more than a fun read. It is a book that will haunt you long after you put it down. Drawn in by Harry Hamilton's enthusiasm for writing, I was drawn to her character because she was so much like me. The mysterious air of the ghostly Carnival brothers adds just the right touch of romantic flare that I need. And the brooding, family secret that lurks just below the surface keep me reading until the early hours of the morning. A page turner, if there ever was one!