How to Catch a Bogle by Catherine JinksHarcourt Children’s Books, 2013

How to Catch a Bogle, which is set in London circa 1870, is a fun middle-grade novel that’s part fantasy, part historical-fiction: the setting of Victorian London feels very real, aside from the fact that the protagonists spend their days hunting child-eating monsters (bogles). Birdie, who’s ten, is a bogler’s apprentice/bait: she sings to lure bogles out of chimneys or sewers, after which she gets out of the way in a hurry so her boss, Alfred Bunce, can kill the monster with his spear. We get to see Birdie and Alfred go out on several jobs, but one meeting they’re summoned for turns out not to be what they expect at all: at a nice house in Bloomsbury they meet a Miss Edith Eames, who says she’s “made a long and scientific study of English folklore” (36). She wants to come along with Alfred and Birdie on their next job—not that she expects to actually see them kill a bogle, since bogles are imaginary, right? I bet you can guess how that goes: Miss Eames is quickly convinced of the error of her beliefs. But her scientific bent doesn’t end there: she’s appalled that Birdie is serving as bogle-bait, and wonders if she and Alfred could study different kinds of bogles and their likes and habits to find some other means of luring them into the open. This question gets pushed aside, though, by a subplot involving a missing pickpocket and a dastardly villain. I won’t say more than that, but there was definitely at least one scene that had me saying “oh no!” aloud.

This book is the first in a trilogy, and I will probably check out the next two: I’m curious to see where Birdie’s story goes, and to see what, if anything, comes of Miss Eames’s desire to transform the profession of bogling. I’m quite fond of Birdie as a character—she’s smart and perceptive and brave and funny—and the non-villainous grown-ups in the story are pretty great, too. At one point in the book, Miss Eames faints, which is something she’s never done before, and Birdie rummages through her basket in search of smelling salts. “I don’t carry smelling salts because I don’t generally require them,” Miss Eames says, and I’m delighted by her indignation (81).