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michverilion 's review for:
The Mystery of Wickworth Manor
by Elen Caldecott
This book starts with a prologue and I did a bit of a grass poll with my third graders last year and most of them skip prologues, because they don’t tell you anything, or they go back and read them at the end when they realise the prologue did tell them something. So if you are eight or nine years old: READ THE PROLOGUE, it’s the mystery that’s referred to on the front cover of the book.
So without having given too much away, I’ll get into chapter one. I really liked the characters because they are very normal kids. You probably know someone just like them, Paige is a bit whacky, into the supernatural and tarot cards and is scared of heights and all kinds of things and Curtis is tortured by a terrible mistake he made, which he feels have had awful consequences. This is not to say that these ‘normal’ kids are boring, oh lordy no. Paige is hysterically funny (partly because I recognise some aspects of her) and Curtis is her straight man, who ‘slowly’ realises that the way he views the world isn’t the only way.
So I haven’t talked about the story or the mystery yet. Basically the kids are on a week’s adventure trip in this big old manor owned by a slightly deranged (my take) old woman. There are attic rooms and cobwebs and lakes, hidden panels and long-lost letters and all the ingredients you need to make a mystery. There were also some dreams and maybe some help from mysterious forces, or not.
And finally, there’s the part where we learn a bit of history, not by opening a text-book and turning to page 23, but by being unable to stop turning the pages of this book and finding out what happens next. Maybe by the time young readers get to the end they will be encouraged by Paige and Curtis to go and find out some more by themselves.
So, yes, all in all, I couldn’t put the book down.
So without having given too much away, I’ll get into chapter one. I really liked the characters because they are very normal kids. You probably know someone just like them, Paige is a bit whacky, into the supernatural and tarot cards and is scared of heights and all kinds of things and Curtis is tortured by a terrible mistake he made, which he feels have had awful consequences. This is not to say that these ‘normal’ kids are boring, oh lordy no. Paige is hysterically funny (partly because I recognise some aspects of her) and Curtis is her straight man, who ‘slowly’ realises that the way he views the world isn’t the only way.
So I haven’t talked about the story or the mystery yet. Basically the kids are on a week’s adventure trip in this big old manor owned by a slightly deranged (my take) old woman. There are attic rooms and cobwebs and lakes, hidden panels and long-lost letters and all the ingredients you need to make a mystery. There were also some dreams and maybe some help from mysterious forces, or not.
And finally, there’s the part where we learn a bit of history, not by opening a text-book and turning to page 23, but by being unable to stop turning the pages of this book and finding out what happens next. Maybe by the time young readers get to the end they will be encouraged by Paige and Curtis to go and find out some more by themselves.
So, yes, all in all, I couldn’t put the book down.