The Ghost of Grania O'Malley

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Everyone knows the Big Hill is full of gold, and now the islanders are intent on cutting the top off it and making themselves rich. Jessie and Jake are determined to save the Big Hill but what can they do? A plan is needed, and fast. Could the ghost of Grania O'Malley, the pirate queen, be the answer? You don't know what you can do until you try.

From master storyteller Michael Morpurgo comes "The Ghost of Grania O'Malley". Everyone knows the Big Hill is full of gold, and now the islanders are intent on cutting the top off it and making themselves rich. Jessie and Jake are determined to save the Big Hill but what can they do? A plan is needed, and fast. Could the ghost of Grania O'Malley, the pirate queen, be the answer? You don't know what you can do until you try.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-6‘Realism and fantasy are artfully blended in this novel set on an island off the Irish coast. Jessie struggles with cerebral palsy, but her hardest battle is against those who continually remind her of her limitations. Unbeknownst to anyone, she climbs the Big Hill that dominates Clare Island. There she appreciates the splendid view and feels the magic of a special place. There, too, she hears for the first time the voice of the long-dead female pirate, Grania O'Malley. Jessie's world is soon disrupted both by the arrival of Jack, an American cousin, and by the news that a mining company has acquired rights to cut off the top of Big Hill to search for gold. However, Grania O'Malley is determined to save it, involving Jessie and Jack in her plans. In a climactic confrontation, Jack makes a heartfelt plea that results in the community ascending the hill en masse to defend it. O'Malley and her pirate band join in to create a triumphant victory. There is a lot going on in the story; however, Morpurgo combines the many elements successfully. Jessie is an appealing character who grows in self-confidence and in the eyes of others. Jack's sojourn to Ireland helps him see what is important so that he can return home able to face his own problems. The appearances and actions of the pirates are convincing, and several minor characters are distinctly portrayed. An appealing, well-told story.‘Jane Gardner Connor, South Carolina State Library, Columbia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 4^-6. From the Big Hill on Clare Island, which Jessie struggles to climb despite her cerebral palsy, she can see the ocean, the bay, and the mainland of Ireland. Soon a struggle over the hill itself divides the islanders, and even Jessie's family, into two camps: those who support destroying the Big Hill in hopes of economic development, and those who struggle to preserve the hill and all it represents. Into this realistic story strides the larger-than-life ghost of Grania O'Malley, the Irish pirate queen, who's ready to give up her legendary treasure for the hill she loves, and willing to do more when that's not enough. History and fantasy weave in and out of the story, inextricable and convincing within the realistic, contemporary setting. The book's conclusion brings a sense that an enormously important, unwieldy, and difficult problem has finally come right. An interesting change of pace for Morpurgo, whose The War of Jenkins' Ear was Booklist's 1995 Top of the List winner for youth fiction. --Carolyn Phelan

Horn Book Review

Struggling with cerebral palsy and frustrated in her efforts to save a historic site from exploitation, Jessie Parsons finds unexpected aid from the ghost of a notorious pirate. Set on an island off Ireland's west coast, the story is remarkable for its characterization, if a bit burdened by issues of self-empowerment and environmental concerns and a rather obvious integration of fantasy and reality. From HORN BOOK 1996, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

Even an unusually vivacious ghost can't brighten this lackluster tale of young people fighting to preserve the scenic beauty of their Irish island. Though hampered by cerebral palsy, Jessie, 10, stubbornly keeps trying to scale Clare Island's Big Hill--and succeeds at last, thanks to some sudden and startling help from the cheery ghost of a 16th-century pirate, Grania O'Malley. Jessie then faces a fresh challenge when a developer brings in earth movers to mine Big Hill for gold. When Jessie, with a visiting American cousin, leads a march to the summit for a faceoff, Grania and her ghostly crew drive the bulldozers over a cliff. The developer goes quietly, placated perhaps by the suggestion that he ``mine'' Big Hill's springs for designer water (to be named, of course, for Grania). The island's formerly depressed economy gets a boost from ghost-hunting tourists. These are neat twists but still shrink-wrapped. While Jessie is a spunky main character, paired with a colorful figure in Irish history (O'Malley's checkered career is covered more thoroughly, and just as admiringly, in Emily Arnold McCully's Pirate Queen, 1995) who is literally and figuratively a kindred spirit, readers looking for the strong atmosphere of Morpurgo's The Wreck of the Zanzibar (1995) or the captivating magic of The Sandman and the Turtles (1993) will be disappointed. (Fiction. 10-13)