The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson

 Kings Cross Station has a magical door between the world of the humans and the world of the Fey.  Every nine years it opens for just one week.  One year four creatures of the Fairy Realm come through the door looking for their prince who was lost through the door nine years earlier.  Ghosts direct them to a horrible boy named Raymond who is unkind and thoroughly spoiled. Duty bound, and with the help of the servant boy, Ben, they try various tactics to try to convince the boy to return to his native land and his royal parents who have mourned him for so long. 

I thought I had read this book years ago, but as I went through it, I had either totally forgotten it, or I never read it in the first place.  Ibbotson is a wonderful storyteller. This is classic children's literature at its best.  The conflicts are straightforward and there is a healthy heap of humor in every chapter.  Good is good and evil is evil and you are always sure right will win out in the end. Raymond is deliciously horrible and one can't help but wonder if he was a model for Dudley Dursley when Rowling wrote Harry Potter three years later. Odge is also an endearing character. I enjoyed it and now I am tempted to go back and read more Ibbotson. (256 p. 1994)