Callum Fox and the Mousehole Ghost

Callum Fox’s summer holiday in Cornwall isn’t working out quite as he’d expected. His Grandad’s turned out to be a miserable old git and Sophie, the girl he met on the train to Penzance, seems to view him as more of a liability than anything else.
However, his time in Mousehole starts to get a whole lot more interesting when he meets Jim, the ghost of a World War II evacuee.
Seventy years separate Callum and Jim, but as their stories unfold Callum realises they have more in common than anyone could have imagined, and that some secrets last a lifetime…

CALLUM FOX AND THE MOUSEHOLE GHOST is aimed at children aged 9 – 12. It is set in two time periods. The historical story line follows Jim White, an evacuee, sent to Mousehole to billet with Bob Fox and his family. The contemporary story line keeps the reader firmly rooted in a humorous and fast paced adventure, following Callum Fox (aged 12), who travels down from London to spend the summer with his Grandad – the same Bob Fox seventy years on. The two stories are told in alternating chapters, clearly defined and intertwined.

Both stories are set in the beautiful fishing village of Mousehole, Cornwall. The author’s family have long been associated with Mousehole and Hatter has based many of the characters in book on her relatives.

Evacuees are studied in most UK primary schools and CALLUM FOX AND THE MOUSEHOLE GHOST is a new fiction book to support the history syllabus, with the added contemporary feel of a story about children with mobile phones and Facebook accounts. The story ties in with the 70th anniversary of the war and also references the 1981 Penlee Lifeboat disaster and Cornish tin mining.

CALLUM FOX AND THE MOUSEHOLE GHOST would make a fantastic summer holiday read for children holidaying in Cornwall – or anywhere!