The Tricksters

by Margaret Mahy

Book Overview

It's been five years since Jonny's sister died. Wracked with guilt, he goes in search of answers and instead, ends up learning a lesson about reminiscing and loss from a woman with Alzheimer's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689504004
• ISBN13: 9780689504006
• Release Date: March 1987
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Mystery, magic, and romance

If you're looking for a story that's a little out of the ordinary, pick up "The Tricksters" by Margaret Mahy. "The Tricksters" is romance, supernatural phenomena, mystery and family drama all rolled into one book full of rich detail and fully realized characters. Mahy's writing is superb. There is nothing basic about the basic plot of "The Tricksters" buy I'll try to sum it up as briefly as possible: Harry (really Ariadne) is on Christmas vacation at the beach (New Zealand - the seasons are swapped) with her family. The five Hamilton children and their parents have been returning to "Carnivals Hide," their vacation home for several years. The place is a family tradition for them and holds the romance and intrigue of the mysterious past of it's original owners, the Carnivals. The children often retell the story and play pretend games involving young Teddy Carnival, a former resident of the home, who tragically drowned, leaving his poor grieving father to sink further into the seclusion of Carnival's Hide. This Christmas, Harry and her family are surprised by three unexpected visitors. Ovid and his twin brothers Hadfield and Felix appear on the beach one day. They perform magic tricks and speak in eloquent riddles and tell of a connection to the Carnival family. To Harry, they appear to have been born straight out of her own imagination - the romance novel she is secretly writing - and she suspects they are not the jovial, romantic brothers they portray but a mystery of a more sinister nature. Who and what are the three tricksters and what is there true business at Carnival's Hide and with the Hamilton family? Magically, the answers are teased out in riddles and hints until finally they culminate in the revelations of a family secret.

If I were Oprah, I'd pick it for my book club!

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!

An extraordinary and evocative work

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.

My favorite of Mahy's books

This book deals with the family conflicts of a New Zealand family, and with the supernatural world that impinges on their lives. Harry, the third child of four, knows a secret that could tear the family apart. She has no temptation to reveal it until the Christmas when her own conflicting needs and the catalyst of three mysterious strangers uncover an older secret and force her to look at the world in a different light. An excellent coming of age book which weaves the supernatural and the natural worlds together with Mahy's deft touch.