Joseph DELANEY is the author of the internationally best-selling The Last Apprentice series, which is now a major motion picture, Seventh Son. He is a former English teacher who lives in the heart of boggart territory in Lancashire, England. His village has a boggart called the Hall Knocker, which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church.
Gr 5-8-Young Tom Ward finds himself taking on more dangerous villains in the second book (Greenwillow, 2006) in Joseph Delaney's series. Six months into his apprenticeship to the monster hunter, aka the Spook, Tom is wrangling boggarts, ghosts, and witches. When he and the Spook are compelled to journey to Priestown for the Spook's brother's funeral, frightful situations develop. The sadistic Quisator is present, seeking to capture and kill the Spook. Alice, Tom's good witch friend, is among those already rounded up for a gruesome mass burning at the stake. How can Tom save Alice when his master recommends leaving her to her fate? Could the Spook's attitude reflect a regretful past love affair with a witch? Meanwhile, a more fearsome creature is bound to the catacombs under the Priestown cathedral. The Bane is a shape-shifting spirit who sucks blood and controls minds. It's up to Tom to outwit the Bane before it infiltrates his mind and inflicts its preferred method of execution, squashing victims flat. Christopher Evan Welch skillfully juggles voices, most notably conveying the Spook's irascibility and Tom's earnestness. Yet it is the Bane that takes center stage with its echoing hiss and eerie, Yoda-like syntax. The violence and villains here are not for the faint of heart. A YALSA 2007 Selected Audiobook for Young Adults.-Erin B. Allen, Rowan Public Library, Salisbury, NC Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
When the Last Apprentice series launched with The Revenge of the Witch, PW wrote in a starred review, "Readers will clamor to learn about Tom's future adventures." Readers need wait no more: 13-year-old Tom, apprenticed to the Spook, returns in Curse of the Bane by Joseph Delaney, illus. by Patrick Arrasmith. New challenges await as the teen confronts the bane of the title, who can control others' thoughts. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
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