The Changeover

Lore & Background

The Changeover is set in a fairly new suburb of Christchurch called Gardendale; Mahy had renamed the suburb of Bishopdale for her book. It has a fairy-tale plot, with a devoted sister risking her life to save her bewitched brother. In some respects a coming-of-age story, it is also an unconventional romance between an aloof and difficult boy who happens to be a male witch and a strong-willed, psychically sensitive schoolgirl. The plot follows Laura Chant, a 14-year-old schoolgirl who has one of her 'warnings', a premonition that something is about to happen, but is forced to ignore it and go to school as usual. On the way home, she and her younger brother Jacko encounter the sinister Carmody Braque, who 'playfully' stamps Jacko's hand, the stamp appearing as an image of his face. As Jacko becomes increasingly ill, Laura believes he has been possessed. She seeks the help of Sorensen 'Sorry' Carlisle, recognized by her as a witch in hiding though to others he seems just a painfully well-behaved school prefect who photographs birds as a hobby. She learns that Braque is an ancient being who consumes the life force of others to keep himself alive. Sorry's grandmother Winter, one of a long line of witches, recommends that Laura should 'changeover' from her normal life, to become a witch or 'woman of the moon' herself. She would then be in a position to trick an unwary Braque into putting himself in her power. Although warned that the changeover can be dangerous, Laura is determined to save her brother, now very near death. Laura experiences the changeover as a spirit journey through a dark forest, which is also at the same time Gardendale. The Carlisle witches help her through it, for their own reasons, and she emerges from the perilous passage with the power of nature and imagination awakened in her. Taking Sorensen along to mask her new power, Laura confronts Braque and succeeds in gaining power over him and breaking his hold on Jacko. At first intending to make the evil entity suffer, she rejects the dark temptation and instead ends his unnatural existence.

Reader's Guide

The Changeover holds significance as a Carnegie Medal-winning novel that blends supernatural thriller elements with an authentic teenage story. It was described by The Guardian as 'a seamless combination of supernatural thriller and entirely authentic teenage story', and by the School Library Journal as 'an extraordinarily rich and sensitive novel' with a beautiful but ornate style. In the re-release of the novel in 2007, the author notes the book's significance as having been both her first young adult novel and the first in which she effectively evoked the New Zealand setting. She also observes its lack of adolescent idiom, which gives it a timeless quality. The novel has been the subject of scholarly essays, especially dealing with its fairy tale elements. WorldCat reports that The Changeover is Mahy's novel most widely held in participating libraries, second among all her works behind a picture book collaboration, The Seven Chinese Brothers (1989). A feature film based on the novel, starring Timothy Spall, Melanie Lynskey, Lucy Lawless, Nicholas Galitzine, Erana James and Kate Harcourt, was released in New Zealand on 28 September 2017.

Did You Know?

• The Changeover won the Carnegie Medal for 1984, making Margaret Mahy the fourth writer with two such honours (of seven through 2012).
• The novel is set in Gardendale, a fictional suburb of Christchurch that Mahy renamed from the real suburb of Bishopdale.
• A feature film adaptation starring Timothy Spall, Melanie Lynskey, and Lucy Lawless was released in New Zealand on 28 September 2017.