Emma Tupper's Diary by Peter Dickinson

Trade paperback format.

A girl helps her Scottish cousins dig up their Victorian-era minisubmarine and they pretend to be a monster in a Scottish loch. There are complications!

Emma is spending the summer with her Scottish cousins—who are wonderful material for her attempt to win the School Prize for most interesting holiday diary. The cousins, lofty Andy, reserved Fiona, and fierce Roddy, and “some sort of looker-after person called Miss Newcombe” are experimenting with their grandfather’s dilapidated old mini-submarine to see if they can find a monster in the family loch.

Emma Tupper’s Diary is a sometimes terrifying, sometimes broadly hilarious (Chapter 3: “I am beginning to understand about the Scots,” wrote Emma. “And why they murdered each other so much.”) adventure novel in the spirit of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and I Capture the Castle.

Praise for Emma Tupper’s Diary:

“Emma Tupper of Botswana goes to spend the summer in Scotland with her bizarre and hilarious, cantankerous, feuding cousins and writes about it in her journal. They launch a plan to create a loch ness hoax in order to make some money to keep the family going. This involves an ancient submarine and leads to a fascinating discovery when the feud goes too far. Great adventure, for fans of Swallows and Amazons.”
— Jenny Craig, Seattle Public Library

“Loch Ness’s claims pale beside the super-exciting discovery made by Emma . . Expert mystification, the tender conscience and burning courage of the young, tantalising details, make this a compelling tall story.”
—Sunday Times