Mortimer Keene - Ghosts on the Loose by Tim Healey and Chris Mould (Hodder Children's Books)

It's a double dose of Chris Mould illustrative ingeniousness on the blog today, illustrating books by two different authors. Here's the second book...

One mere whiff of the word "Ghosts" in the title of this book was enough to have Charlotte running off to tuck herself into a corner with it. I managed to persuade her to let go long enough to tell me what she thought of "Mortimer Keene - Ghosts on the Loose".

The third in Tim Healey and Chris Mould's paperback series, the ever-inquisitive experimenter and boy genius (?) Mortimer Keene is dabbling in the occult. Splicing together technology and mysticism, he has discovered a way to tunnel through time, projecting phantoms of the past into the present day.

Which would be great, no really it would, if Mortimer wasn't doing so on school premises. Eek!

As you can imagine, ghostly monks, grey ladies and victorian hangmen turning up can cause a little disruption to the school curriculum, but Mortimer has a plan to save the school (and the universe) if only he can find enough ectoplasmic energy.

Charlotte loved this, again it's great to see her engaging with books on her own - and then showing me all the good bits (and knowledgeably telling me all the technical ins and outs of how Mortimer's fantastic spook-summoning machine works, thanks to Chris Mould's fantastic scratchy and superb illustrations).

We're now on the hunt for the rest of the Mortimer Keene series (you can also join Mortimer Keene for "Alien Abduction" and "Attack of the Slime" in his other adventures - a prospect that filled Charlotte with Ghoulish glee!)

Charlotte's best bit: The grey lady popping up in the loos. She must've been taking lessons from Moaning Myrtle.

Daddy's Favourite bit: A nice gothic mix of ghoulish behaviour, steampunk-inventiveness and brilliant brilliant rhymes.

(Kindly sent to us for review by Hodder Children's Books)