Morag Donu ‘The Scarecrow’ Review

Written by: Myra Gabor

Adelaide is a teenager with only three months to go til she can be finished with school. Her father has retired from his desk job in the city and moved the family to the sticks on the west coast of Scotland. A change of scenery and much reduced income will keep his struggling marriage safe. Probably. Maybe.

In Adelaide’s new town, teenage girls keep disappearing. The community has a rather apathetic attitude. After all, it’s spring and girls do take off on their own. They always have, so no reason to get excited.

One of the new things Adelaide sees is a field of scarecrows. She thinks that they’re scary when she’s awake. She’s terrified of them when she dreams of them. Of all the weird things that Adelaide dreams and thinks she sees when awake, her answer to all of it is; they do things differently in the country.

Adelaide is getting an education outside school. She makes friends with a girl who has a lower class accent, but realizes immediately that the girl is quite bright.  She discovers that smoking marijuana as a young person gets someone who is the “right sort” a talking to, while the “wrong sort” will be imprisoned.

She meets a gypsy boy there and finds out that there are decent and educated gypsies who have their own culture, as well as the rougher sort.

No matter how scary our dreams are or what we think of as coming from beyond, this author knows that there is nothing as terrifying or cruel as what people do to each other. She speaks of terrible physical harm as well as betrayal.

Some parts of this novella are quite poetic, yet it’s still very scary.  There are some typos near the end and some lines look like they’ve been transposed, which takes away from the reading enjoyment, so the 4 rating when it could have been higher.

Order it here.

Rating: 4/5