Posted on by TracyC

House of Many Ways

House of Many Ways cover

House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones, 2008.

This is the third book in the Howl Trilogy. The Howl books are a loose series. Although the wizard Howl, his wife Sophie, and the fire demon Calcifer are the main characters in the first book and appear in all of the other stories, they are not the main characters in the other stories.

When her Great Uncle William, who is a wizard, has to go away for treatment for a health condition with the elves, Charmaine’s Aunt Sempronia volunteer her to house-sit for him. When Aunt Sempronia goes to tell Great Uncle William that Charmaine will be looking after his house, he asks whether Charmaine knows anything about magic. The aunt says that she doesn’t think so. Charmaine spends all of her time reading and doesn’t usually help much with the housework at home. Her aunt thinks this responsibility would do her good. Great Uncle William is a little concerned because his house is not an ordinary house, and he says that he had better take some precautions.

Although Charnaine could be annoyed at being volunteered for this chore without her permission, she is actually grateful for this opportunity to get away from her parents. Her parents are overprotective of her, and they never allow her to do anything that is remotely daring or doesn’t seem completely respectable. She feels stifled, and she wants the chance for a little independence. One of her first acts of independence is to write to the king, telling him that, more than anything, she would like to help catalog his library. She knows that the king is cataloging it himself with the help of his daughter, Princess Hilda (which was established in the previous book in the series), but Charmaine loves books more than anything and she has always dreamed of being an assistant librarian in the royal library. Her parents would think that she was being too cheeky by asking for this position.

In the meantime, Charmaine can prove herself capable and enjoy further independence in Great Uncle William’s house. When she arrives there, Aunt Sempronia tells her that living in a wizard’s house is serious business. Charmaine doesn’t know much about magic because her parents would never let her study it. They didn’t think magic was very respectable.

When Great Uncle William meets her, he seems pleased by her and starts to tell her that he has taken precautions for her stay in the house. Charmaine is about to tell him that she doesn’t know any magic, but they are interrupted by the elves, who come to take Great Uncle William away for his treatment. Charmaine asks the elves how long Great Uncle William will be gone, but they just say “as long as it takes.” Although Charmaine finds herself alone in the house, she hears Great Uncle William’s voice telling her that she will have to tidy the kitchen and apologizing for leaving so much laundry. His voice also says that there are more detailed instructions in the suitcase he left behind.

Before looking at the detailed instructions, Charmaine decides to take a look around the house and get herself unpacked. The kitchen is a horrible mess, and there are enormous bags of laundry. To her astonishment, there are no water taps in the kitchen sink, but there is a water pump outside. This is going to make her job harder. She is tempted to put her nose in a book and forget all her troubles and chores in the house, but she left the job of packing her own bag to her mother, and her mother didn’t include the books she had sitting out. Charmaine realizes that she should have packed her bag herself. This house-sitting job is going to be an education in responsibility as well as independence for Charmaine.

Charmaine also discovers that there’s a dog in the house that nobody told her about. Great Uncle William’s voice tells her that the dog is called Waif, that he used to be a stray, and that he’s afraid of everything. Charmaine was always afraid of dogs because of her mother’s worries about them, but Waif is so timid that she doesn’t worry about him and shares her food with him.

Charmaine realizes that she has led a very sheltered life, partly because of all of the things she was never required to do and also because of the things her parents wouldn’t let her do. It helps that anytime she asks a question out loud, Great Uncle William’s voice gives her the answer.

As Charmaine starts learning her away around the house, she discovers both that she has her work cut out for her and that it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the house. She also discovers that Great Uncle William’s study has many books in it. A note that her uncle left for her in the study says that he could be gone for about two weeks to a month and explaining more about the spoken instructions he left for her as well as the instructions in the suitcase. The note says that she can use the books in the study, but it warns her to be careful of the difficult spells. Charmaine is very appreciative for the books, although she finds them difficult to understand because they are all about magic. There are also many letters in the study written to her uncle by other wizards, including one from the wizard Howl. Many of the letters are from people asking Great Uncle William to take them on as apprentices. Charmaine thinks that her letter to the king probably sounded as pathetic as some of those letters to her great uncle.

Because Charmaine has never been allowed to try any magic before, she can’t resist trying one of the spells from one of her uncle’s books. She chooses one that looks pretty easy, but because the book’s pages turn every time she leaves to get more ingredients, she ends up putting bits and pieces of different spells together. Her spells does what she intends it to do, but the full results take some time.

Things get complicated when Charmaine has a terrifying encounter with a creature called a Lubbock while picking flowers in the mountains near the house. The Lubbock claims that it owns all the land around and everyone in it … including Charmaine. She has a narrow escape, getting away from the creature!

After she returns to the house, she meets a new arrival: Peter, Great Uncle William’s new apprentice. This unexpected guest gives Charmaine an extra responsibility. Peter is still pretty inexperienced with magic and often gets left and right mixed up, but even though he’s almost as inexperienced with everything as Charmaine, he is still company for her in this strange house. He recognizes that the reason why the house is so confusing and rooms seem to move around is that Great Uncle William has cast a spell on the house to bend space and include extra rooms in the house.

When Charmaine tells Peter about her encounter with the Lubbock, he is alarmed. The two of them research Lubbocks in Great Uncle William’s books, and what they learn is horrifying. Lubbocks need human hosts to reproduce, and those hosts die. The Lubbock offspring are also evil. While a full Lubbock looks like a purple insect, a human and Lubbock hybrid will have purple eyes. Charmaine and Peter reassure themselves that neither of them shows any sign of being part Lubbock. However, even with her aunt and mother coming to check on her, Charmaine isn’t prepared to let her fear of the Lubbock ruin her first experience with independence.

To her surprise, the king also accepts her application to work in the royal library! The cataloging work in the library isn’t quite as much fun as she had imagined it would be because much of it is routine documents, but Charmaine learns that the king and his daughter are searching for some very important documents. Before he went away, Great Uncle William was also helping them. Now, the princess has called in an old friend of hers, Sophie Pendragon, wife of the Royal Wizard Howl of Ingary. There is a plot against the royal family which has kept them poor. Not all of the royal family is what they seem to be, and some of the secrets of the past are hidden in Great Uncle William’s unusual house.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

Some of the characters in this book other than Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer were introduced in the previous book in the series. The elderly princess was one of the princesses kidnapped by the djinn, which is how she met Sophie. The king’s cook, Jamal, and his dog were also introduced in Castle in the Air. However, Charmaine is definitely the main character of the story, along with Peter as her sidekick and main helper. The other characters are there for support. Howl and Sophie help Charmaine by providing her with information that she wouldn’t have had otherwise, and Calcifer destroys some of the threats because only a fire demon is powerful enough to do it. Howl is in the castle in disguise because, as one of the royal wizards of another country, it wouldn’t be right for him to seem to be working for the royal family of another country. Unlike in Castle in the Air, though, readers know right away what Howl’s disguise is, and it’s played for comedy. The villains of the story aren’t too difficult to spot once they appear. What is more mysterious is what the king is searching before and what happened to it.

Charmaine’s self-discovery is a major part of the story. Charmaine knows from the beginning that she has lived a very sheltered life because of her mother’s standards for what is “respectable” and proper for a young girl like her. She has already decided that she doesn’t agree with all of her mother’s ideas and that she wants some independence. To her credit, although she does resent some of the routine chores she has to do while taking care of Great Uncle William’s house, she is determined to learn what what she has to learn to achieve some independence and do some of the things she really wants to do. Peter knows more about some things than Charmaine does, like how to do dishes and laundry, so he is some help to her, but he has only recently left home to take up his apprenticeship, so there are things that he doesn’t know, either. Neither one of them knows how to cook, so they turn to Charmaine’s father for advice and recipes. Charmaine’s father is more broad-minded than her mother, so he is willing to help. Charmaine also gradually learns to get along with Peter, and they learn how to consider each other’s feelings and allow each other their own learning opportunities. At one point, Peter tidies up Charmaine’s room as a favor to her, but she is annoyed and tells him not to do that anymore because she wants to take care of her own things for herself.

From her own experimentation and from what her father tells her, Charmaine discovers that she has a natural talent for magic. She inherited her magical talent from her father, who admits to her that he has secretly been using his talent for making things in his bakery. He never tells his wife about his magic because she wouldn’t approve.

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery of the Haunted Pool

Mystery of the Haunted Pool by Phyllis A. Whitney, 1960.

At the beginning of the story, Susan Price is traveling alone to visit her Aunt Edith. Her father is in the hospital, and her mother and brothers are tending to things at home. Her family wants her to make a good impression on Captain Daniel Teague, who lives in Aunt Edith’s town. Her father’s doctor has advised him to move to the country, where there is less air pollution, and the family would like to move to the small town along the Hudson River where Aunt Edith owns an antique store. However, the only available house that would be big enough for the family would be the Teague house, and Captain Dan hasn’t decided whether to rent or sell his house to them or not. Before Susan arrives, she isn’t sure what’s going on with Captain Dan and the arrangements regarding his house, but it turns out to be a complicated situation involving her aunt’s antique business, the Teague family history, and Captain Dan’s grandson, Gene.

When Susan’s bus reaches the bus stop, Aunt Edith isn’t there to meet her, so she walks to her aunt’s store. Aunt Edith apologizes for not meeting her. The reason why she didn’t is that a woman named Altoona was hanging around her shop, and she didn’t want to leave Altoona there alone. Lately, Altoona has been acting suspiciously, snooping around the shop as though she’s looking for something but doesn’t want anyone to know. Aunt Edith doesn’t know what Altoona is looking for, but it’s making her nervous. In particular, Altoona seems interested in a barrel of old books that Aunt Edith is selling on commission for Captain Dan, but Aunt Edith doesn’t want her looking through them until she’s had a chance to examine them herself.

Aunt Edith says that she’s known Altoona since they were children. Altoona was raised by her father and an older sister, both of whom were strict and unloving. Altoona led a very restricted life until her father and sister both drowned in a boating accident. Since then, Altoona has been indulging herself by spending her inheritance on antiques. However, rather than being a good customer of Aunt Edith’s, Altoona has turned into competition. She seems to delight in trying to beat Aunt Edith to some fascinating antique. Altoona seems to be on the trail of some new discovery, but Aunt Edith doesn’t want to give her the chance to poach something that might be right under her nose in her own shop.

Since Aunt Edith’s husband died years before, she’s been living in a back room of her shop. With her brother and his family wanting to move to the country, she’s planning on helping them get a house and living there with them. Aunt Edith has her eye on a particular house owned by Captain Daniel Teague, but he’s been reluctant to sell, which is why it would help if Susan made a good impression on him. Captain Dan has been living in a big old house with his grandson, Gene, but it’s an expensive house to maintain for just the two of them. He’s been considering renting it to Susan’s family with an option for them to purchase it later. However, he’s been dragging his feet on making a final decision because he wants to make sure that he approves of the Price family and that Aunt Edith won’t sell any of the antique furnishings from the house in her shop without permission. Also, Gene is upset at the idea of moving, and Captain Dan is concerned about Gene.

Aunt Edith explains that Gene is just a little older than Susan and that he was injured in an accident a couple of years before. He was hit by a car, and he’s been in and out of the hospital for treatment. Even now, his leg is stiff, and he has to wear a brace. Susan witnesses his frustration when she watches him trying to play basketball alone the first time she meets him. She can tell that he’s been trying really hard to overcome his disability, but things are still very hard for him. Susan is touched by Gene’s struggles and his stubborn efforts to succeed. She also discovers that he has strength and coordination in his arms, even though his left leg is very weak. When she asks Gene to teach her how to shoot baskets so she can impress one of her older brothers, she begins to realize that sometimes Gene tries too hard, and it makes his situation harder on him. When he gets tense, he has more trouble than when he’s relaxed.

Gene confesses to Susan that he feels guilty about being hit by the car, not only because he got hurt but because of what it’s done to his family. He admits that it was his fault for not looking more carefully before crossing a nearby highway. He feels terrible because his grandfather has spent most of his savings to pay for the hospital and doctors’ bills, and his mother had to get a job in New York City to pay the rest. Gene’s reluctance to move out of the family’s old home is that he knows how much his grandfather loves it, and he would feel even more terrible if his family lost the house because of his careless accident. The two of them seem to be getting along until Susan tries to climb a nearby rock, and Gene angrily tells her not to.

Captain Dan turns out to be a nice man. He’s called Captain because he used to be a river boat captain. He comes from a long line of sailors. When Susan tells him about meeting Gene and how Gene got angry at her for trying to climb a rock, Captain Dan tells her not to try too hard to accommodate Gene and his moods. He says that Gene’s biggest improvements have only come recently, when he started pushing Gene to work harder to improve. He thinks that Gene was a bit coddled up to that point and that he was too discouraged by the doctors’ predictions about what he wouldn’t be able to do anymore without really trying to test his limits and see what he could do for himself. In a way, Captain Dan is actually in favor of the Prices moving into their big family home because he knows that Susan has brothers. He thinks that having other boys around will be good for Gene, getting him to participate in more activities and push himself a little more.

One thing that’s making Captain Dan hesitate is the idea of having Aunt Edith in his house. He admits that he finds it difficult to say no to her when she wants something, and she’s been urging him to let her sell some of his old things in her shop. He’s concerned about what she might talk him into parting with next if she were living in his house. When Gene finds out that Aunt Edith talked his grandfather into parting with that barrel of old books, he gets angry again and talks back to his grandfather.

Susan is surprised at Gene’s rudeness and disrespect, but his grandfather says that part of that comes from Gene not liking himself much right now. Because Gene is unhappy with and disparaging of himself, he’s unhappy and disparaging with everyone. That’s part of why Captain Dan has been pushing Gene to improve himself, to give him more confidence and self-respect because he will see that he still has the ability to improve. Captain Dan also realizes that Gene has an intense attachment to their family home and family heirlooms because he takes more pride in their family’s history than in himself, thinking that he’ll never be able to be proud of himself now. Aunt Edith says that Gene’s father, a pilot who died in a crash, was also a decorated pilot during WWII. When Gene was younger, before he was injured, he was a much more active boy, and his father was proud of him for it. Aunt Edith thinks that Gene worries that his father would be ashamed if he saw his current condition.

Susan likes Captain Dan for his kindness and understanding of Gene. She’s not sure how much help her brothers would be with Gene, though. Her brother Adam, the closest in age to Gene, probably wouldn’t have much patience with a boy like him. That’s probably why Susan’s family decided that Susan would be the best person to break the ice with Captain Dan and Gene.

Susan tells Captain Dan that she saw Altoona watching the house when she came up to see him, and he says that he knows about Altoona’s obsession with antiques. He’s not sure what Altoona is looking for, but he thinks it must be some kind of antique. Mrs. Bancroft, Captain Dan’s housekeeper, says that the family has a secret. Aunt Edith says that rumor has been around their small town for years, but she doesn’t know what sort of secret it’s supposed to be, and with a town full of people who all know each other and each other’s family history, she can’t imagine what could still be secret about the Teague family.

Then, Susan finds an old ship’s log book in the bottom of the barrel of books that Aunt Edith got from Captain Dan. It’s the log book for the Flying Sarah, the ship that one of the Teague ancestors sailed. Aunt Edith returns the log book to Gene because she knows it must be a family heirloom, more valuable to the Teague family than anyone else. However, Gene is still sore about Aunt Edith having the barrel of books, and Susan catches him sneaking into the shop one night while Aunt Edith is out. He says that he wants one of the books, but he refuses to say which one he wants or why. Susan thinks that Gene knows more about his family’s secret than he’s telling and that his concern about the books has something to do with it. It seems like Gene may be on the trail of the same thing Altoona is searching for, but what is it? Captain Dan also seems to know, but he tells Gene in Susan’s presence that it doesn’t matter.

Susan gets a hint from Altoona when Altoona tells her that the old Teague house is haunted by the ghost of Sarah Teague, the wife of the captain who sailed the Flying Sarah, which was named for her. Altoona says that Sarah’s husband was murdered on the Flying Sarah and that Sarah took over the family’s shipping business after his death. Then, Sarah drowned in the little pool in the woods near their house. Altoona says that Sarah promised to come back and haunt the house if things didn’t go her way, but what does that mean?

Susan does some research in an old book about ships and discovers that the captain of the Flying Sarah had been carrying a valuable shipment of jewels for a friend when the ship was attacked by pirates. He died from the wounds he received from the pirates, and the pirates apparently took the jewels along with other valuable objects from the ship. After her husband’s death, Sarah Teague insisted on taking responsibility for the lost jewels and repaying the owner for their loss, which was financially crippling for the family. The book also repeats the story about Sarah Teague haunting the old family home. Soon after Susan and Aunt Edith move into the Teague house, someone break in during the night, apparently looking for something. Susan goes to look at the pool where Sarah drowned and thinks that she sees a strange face looking back at her from the water. What message from the past does Sarah Teague have for them, and what secret has the Teague family been hiding for generations?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

For much of the book, the exact nature of the Teague family secret is a mystery to Susan, although readers can probably make a pretty good guess at what Susan eventually finds. Part of the difficulty is that the Teagues themselves don’t seem to quite understand what they really have. They know part of the secret, but only part of it. When Susan discovers the rest, it changes things for Captain Dan and Gene. Susan’s brother, Adam, helps Susan with the mystery for part of the book, but Susan is the one who makes the final discovery.

Altoona is kind of a rival/antagonist for solving the mystery, but not an evil one. She appears to be going through a kind of finding herself phase since the deaths of her father and sister. Her family was repressive, so for the first time in her life, she is taking advantage of opportunities to get involved with community activities and indulge her own whims. She dresses in strange ways because she’s trying out all of the things her father and sister would have never allowed her to wear when she was younger. She volunteers at the local library, but she has trouble deciding which books to recommend to the children who visit the library because she’s never read many of them herself. When Susan suggests to her that she should read some of the children’s books herself so she’ll know what they’re like and what they’re about, Altoona balks at the idea of an adult reading children’s books at first. However, she decides that maybe Susan is right, and when she tries some of the children’s books that Susan recommends, she says that she likes them.

Altoona’s pursuit of the Teague family secrets isn’t malicious. It seems to come from her newfound sense of independence and adventure. Figuring out the old mysteries of the Teague family is a sort of personal challenge for her and something that has fascinated her for her entire life, a fascination that she is now free to indulge. She almost messes things up by taking something that doesn’t belong to her, but it turns out to be an innocent mistake because of something Gene did, and she makes things right in the end. Altoona also comes up with a solution to the Price family’s housing problem. She says that she’s always wanted to travel, and at Adam’s encouragement, she’s decided to take an extended international trip for a year or so. While she’s away, she rents her house to the Price family so the Teague family can have their house to themselves again.

The book mainly focuses on self-discovery for Gene as a side plot to the story. At the end of the book, Gene’s problems aren’t completely solved, but he has become more reconciled to his condition and has a better understanding of things he can and can’t do because of the children’s adventures. By learning to get along with Susan and Adam, Gene becomes more ready to face other people and their reactions to his disability. When things improve for him and his family, he also seems less inclined to keep beating himself up over his accident. Things aren’t perfect for him at the end, and he’s probably never going to have completely normal use of his bad leg again. Still, there are signs that he’s mending, both physically and emotionally, and that things will get easier for him.

I like books that mention other books. In this book, the barrel of books that Aunt Edith gets from Captain Dan includes classics, like Little Women and Treasure Island. There are also books by Washington Irving, Gene Stratton Porter (known for A Girl of the Limberlost), and Harold Bell Wright and some “novels about an imaginary kingdom called Graustark.” These are all real authors and books. Aunt Edith says that some of them aren’t old enough to be considered real antiques, but this book was written more than 60 years, so modern standards would be different. Part of the story also includes books that have hidden pictures drawn on the fore-edges of the pages, which can only be seen when the pages are held at an angle. This type of fore-edge drawing or painting is something that can be found in real antique books.

Posted on by TracyC

Marianne Dreams

Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr, 1958, 2000.

Marianne has been looking forward to her birthday because her parents have promised her that when she is ten years old, she will be old enough to have riding lessons. She and her family live in town, so she doesn’t have easy access to horses, like children in the country do. Her special birthday present is going to have her first lesson at the local riding stable. Her birthday is wonderful, and the riding lesson goes very well, even if some of the more spectacular things that she had imagined before didn’t happen. Marianne would be perfectly happy except, at the end of the lesson, she is more tired than usual and feels achy. By lunchtime, she is feeling definitely ill, and she has a fever.

Marianne’s birthday illness quickly turns into the worst illness she’s ever had. Because of her illness, Marianne has to be confined to her bed for weeks, and she loses track of time. About three weeks after her illness began, she begins to feel a little more like herself and has more awareness of time and what’s happening around her. When she was at her worst, it was hard for her to be interested in anything or focus on anything, but now, she can think clearly enough to be bored and look for something to entertain herself. Marianne’s mother allows her to look through her grandmother’s old workbox, which mostly contains old needlework tools and an array of buttons, ribbons, beads, and other odds and ends that are interesting to look through and sort.

Among the things in the workbox, Marianne finds an old pencil. She immediately likes the look of the stubby old pencil and has the sense that it would be fun to use for drawing, so she picks up her drawing book and begins to draw a picture of a house with a fence around it and some flowers. Marianne’s drawing isn’t particularly great, not as good as what she pictured in her mind’s eye when she started it, but it is the start of something very special.

Although she is starting to feel better, Marianne’s doctor tells her that she is going to miss the whole rest of this term at school. He prescribes strict bed rest for her for the next six weeks. The doctor doesn’t actually say what’s wrong with Marianne, but he tells her that if she doesn’t rest, she could harm herself in a way that would last for the whole rest of her life. Even though she’s bored and says she’d rather be harmed or permanently ill than have to spend more weeks in bed, her doctor is firm with her that this is the way things are. He’ll see that she follows his instructions and recovers whether she likes it or not. Her condition is not contagious, so she can have visitors, but she must remain in bed and rest.

Marianne is sure that these weeks of bed rest are going to be horrible and boring, but soon, something strange begins to happen. She starts having dreams about the house that she drew with that special pencil. When she finds herself in the country with the house, the house is a little misshapen, and it unnerves her. The house is located on an empty, windy prairie, and Marianne can’t even get into the house because she didn’t draw a door handle on the door or put anyone inside the house who could let her inside.

Marianne realizes that she could easily remedy these things by adding more to her drawing, so when she wakes up, she adds a knocker and handle to the door. She also draws a boy looking out one of the windows of the house. The boy seems a little sad when she draws him, but she isn’t sure how to fix his expression, so she just leaves it. Although Marianne isn’t sure whether she’ll ever dream of the house again, she does. In her next dream, the door has the knocker and handle, just like she drew, and there is a sad-looking boy at one of the windows of the house. Marianne waves to the boy and asks him to let her into the house, but he can’t. The boy is upstairs in the house, and there aren’t any stairs down to the ground floor. Marianne asks the boy how he got up there without any stairs, but he says he doesn’t know. Marianne insists that she needs to get into the house, and the boy says that he needs to get out. Marianne gets angry at the boy and the situation, which seems impossible. However, this is not the end of the dreams, and the boy isn’t just a figment of her imagination.

Marianne’s mother hires a temporary governess to tutor Marianne at home so she doesn’t fall too far behind in school. Marianne doesn’t like the idea of the governess at first, but Miss Chesterfield turns out to be friendly, and her visits and lessons add variety to Marianne’s days. When Marianne asks Miss Chesterfield about her career as a governess, she learns that, unlike governesses in books, Miss Chesterfield doesn’t live with her clients. Instead, she tutors different children in their homes, visiting each for a couple hours at a time. All of the children she tutors are children who are behind in their studies or who are studying special subjects that aren’t covered at their school or whose circumstances prevent them for going to school for a time, like Marianne. One of the other children being tutored by Miss Chesterfield is a boy named Mark, who has been left partially paralyzed from a severe illness and can’t walk. Marianne asks Miss Chesterfield if Mark will be able to walk again someday, and she says that it’s likely he will if he takes care of himself in the next couple of months and does what his doctor says.

However, as with Marianne, obeying the doctor’s orders isn’t easy for Mark. While Marianne wishes that she could just be up and about instead of resting like she should, Mark is just the opposite. He loves being at home with his books, and he has trouble pushing himself to start getting up and moving again, which is what his condition really requires. Mark needs to do physical therapy to strengthen his body and retrain his muscles, but it’s difficult and painful. Marianne is sympathetic to Mark because she knows what it’s like to be ordered to do something she doesn’t want to do even though it’s for her own good. She wishes that the two of them could switch places for a time so he could do at least some of her bed resting for her, and she could have the chance to get up and move around. Miss Chesterfield says that she thinks the two of them are better off being themselves and doing what each of them needs to do.

Marianne continues to feel the urge to draw in her spare time. She discovers that she’s unable to erase anything that she’s drawn, but she can continue to add to the picture. She adds more to the background so the house won’t seem to be in such an empty void, and on the opposite page in her drawing book, she draws the interior of the house, adding the stairs that the boy said were missing. This time, when Marianne dreams of the house, she finds herself in the interior, which is mostly empty because she hasn’t drawn furniture yet. She explores the house and finds the boy sitting on a window seat, looking outside, like he did before. The boy has noticed that the world outside the house has changed since Marianne drew hills and a tree. The two of them talk about their situation, trying to understand how they came to be in the house, and Marianne tells the boy that, now that there are stairs, he can go outside. The boy tells her that he still can’t because he can’t walk. He explains to Marianne about how he’s been ill for a long time, and he has special exercises he’s supposed to do to help his muscles, but it still isn’t definite whether he’ll be able to walk again or not. That’s when Marianne realizes that she’s talking to Mark, the same Mark that Miss Chesterfield told her about.

The two children could be dream companions for each other, but Marianne becomes more temperamental the longer she’s cooped up. One day, in a fit of anger because Mark made Miss Chesterfield late to see her and ruined her special surprise present for Miss Chesterfield’s birthday, Marianne turns the house in her drawing into a prison and the rocks outside into monsters that watch the house. Marianne thinks it would be a fitting punishment for Mark to be a prisoner in their dream house, but the problem with that is that Marianne still goes to the house when she’s asleep, too. Whenever she’s there, she’s also in a scary prison, surrounded by rock monsters.

It takes Marianne an embarrassingly long time to realize that everything she adds to her drawing changes the environment of the dreams that both she and Mark share, and even when she realizes that’s the case, Mark has a difficult time accepting it. It seems like, when the kids are in the dream world, they have some trouble remembering the waking world and making connections between the two, although Marianne has more memory of her waking life than Mark does, probably because Mark is more seriously ill. While Marianne has control of the special pencil and more ability to alter the world of their dreams, she can’t change everything, and the two children will have to work together to overcome their obstacles and escape the house. The house is useful for them during their recovery, but they quickly realize that it’s also a dangerous place, and they can’t stay there forever. Although Marianne didn’t draw a way for the rocks with the eyes to move, they are moving, and they’re getting closer all the time.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). In 1988, the story was made into a movie called Paperhouse. Paperhouse is a much darker version of the original story, though. There was a much earlier television mini-series from 1972 based on the book called Escape Into Night, which was much more faithful to the original story, although in that version, Marianne had a broken leg from a riding accident instead of being ill. All six episodes of Escape Into Night are currently on YouTube. I don’t know of any other way to watch it if you live in the US. There are dvds available on Amazon, but they’re region coded. For sci-fi fans, I swear that the rock monsters in Escape Into Night also sound like Daleks from the original Doctor Who. The book was originally published in Britain, and the movie versions are also British. There is also a sequel to this book called Marianne and Mark, where the two children from this book meet as teenagers in real life instead of in the dream world.

My Reaction and Spoilers

To begin with, I’d like to explain that, while the concept of a drawing coming to life somewhat reminds me of Harold and the Purple Crayon, this is definitely a more serious book with greater depth. The children in the story are dealing with some serious and frightening problems, both in the real world and the dream world.

I love the way that the pictures in the book alternate between Marianne’s drawings and the children’s “real” experiences. First, we get to see what Marianne draws, and then, we get to see how her drawing comes to life in the children’s dreams. Marianne’s drawings are child-like, with crooked houses, misplaced windows, and stick figures. The dream drawings are as misshapen as Marianne’s drawings, but at the same time, they are more three-dimensional, as the children perceive them when they’re inside them in their dreams.

The book never explains exactly why Marianne is sick or what might happen to her if she doesn’t rest, although I have a couple of ideas. There are illnesses which can leave people severely weakened for long periods of time, and they have to rest or suffer lasting organ damage. When my aunt was young, she was extremely ill with valley fever. That’s probably not the illness Marianne has because valley fever comes from a fungus found in the soil in certain parts of the Americas, but I don’t think it’s found where Marianne lives in Britain. I mention it because I think that it’s similar in severity to Marianne’s illness. Most people who get valley fever don’t have it severely. In fact, most long-term residents of the area where I live have had it at some point in their lives, and it’s often mistaken for a mild flu. However, once in a while, someone has a much more serious case, like my aunt did. My aunt had to spend weeks at home, resting, and a tutor came to the house to help her with her schoolwork until she recovered enough to return to school. Even then, she had certain restrictions. Valley fever is hard on the lungs, so she couldn’t over-exert herself. For a period after she returned to school, she still tired quickly from ordinary activities, she could not take physical education classes, and she even had to use the elevator at her school (which was reserved only for those who needed it) instead of taking the stairs to classes like most of the other students. If my aunt had pushed herself too hard before she had fully built back her strength and stamina, she might have damaged her lungs permanently. I think that the doctor in this book is warning Marianne that her condition is similar, that she might cause herself some form of lasting organ damage if she doesn’t rest and let herself fully recover.

In Marianne’s case, I suspect that Marianne’s illness could potentially damage her heart because her doctor is concerned that she not get angry or over-excited, but that’s just a guess. Illnesses like that are relatively uncommon, but they do happen in real life. Depending on the condition she has, it’s possible that Marianne’s extended bed rest might also be shortened by more modern treatments, if this story happened during the 21st century. It’s difficult to say without knowing what her ailment is, but I think it’s worth pointing out that this story was written during the 1950s, which is also coincidentally the time period when my aunt had her illness in her youth.

In the movie version of the story, Paperhouse, they say that Marianne had glandular fever, but since the book never specifies, some readers have speculated that she might have had rheumatic fever, since the symptoms fit the description of her illness. I tend to think rheumatic fever is more likely because it can potentially cause a risk to the heart, and that seems to be the concern in the book, the reason why Marianne has to rest and be careful to avoid long-term damage to herself until she is fully healed. In Paperhouse, Mark is described as having muscular dystrophy, but the book actually says that Mark has polio. The first polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk in the early 1950s, although it took a few years for it to come into widespread use, so it’s plausible that Mark could have caught the disease before he had a chance to be vaccinated.

My parents were both in elementary school during the 1950s, and they remember getting their polio vaccinations and the boosters that they gave to kids in an edible form on sugar cubes. Other people who were young around that time period may have similar memories. Although I never saw a child or young person with polio when I was a kid, probably because all the kids I knew were vaccinated, my parents say that it was a real menace when they were young, and the serious consequences of the disease were a real fear. While my mother was still young, her aunt contracted polio as an adult. Her aunt survived having polio, but there were lasting effects. Even people who recover their strength after having polio while young or relatively young can have it come back on them when they’re older as post-polio syndrome. My mother remembers her aunt before she became ill, but by the time I met my great-aunt, she was an elderly lady in a wheelchair because of the condition. That’s part of the reason why my family believes in the benefit of vaccines in general. We’ve noticed definite improvements between generations because of them.

The characters in the story experience some personal growth from their ordeals. I liked it that, in the beginning of the story, Marianne considers some of the old-fashioned stories she’s read where girls suffer from severe illnesses or ailments that keep them in bed for long period of time. It is a common trope of 19th century and early 20th century books that characters’ lives and personalities are changed by illness because dealing with the illness and the restrictions imposed on them because of it teaches them patience and understanding. (See What Katy Did in the Carr Family series from the late 19th century for an example.) Marianne wonders if she’ll experience the same type of transformation or if she’ll still be the same Marianne she always was after her ordeal is over. Both Marianne and Mark have things they need to learn in order to overcome their respective problems. Miss Chesterfield’s belief that it’s best for them both to learn to manage their problems rather than envying each other is the correct one.

Marianne has to learn about emotional control. During her period of forced rest, Marianne’s temper gets worse because she’s frustrated with her situation, and her doctor warns her that she’s going to have to learn to keep calm because fits of temper are as bad for her health as physical over-exertion. Marianne needs to learn to relax, to not try to push herself or situations to move faster than they need to go, and to keep her temper even when she’s frustrated. When she realizes that the things she draws on paper with the special pencil have real consequences for Mark, who is also struggling through his illness, Marianne also becomes more compassionate and considerate, trying to find creative ways to help Mark through her drawings. It takes some trial and error, but Marianne does become a more thoughtful person. When it’s finally time for Marianne to get out of bed and start to strengthen herself again, she experiences some of what Mark has been struggling with, and it increases her understanding of his situation.

Meanwhile, Mark has to learn to push himself a little harder and to persevere even in the face of hardship. Miss Chesterfield has noticed that, while Mark will work and study hard at things he likes or things that are easy for him, he has a tendency to give up too soon or only make half-hearted efforts at things that are difficult or don’t come naturally to him. While his body is getting the the medical attention it needs, his spirit needs some stirring so he can find the inner strength to keep going with his efforts to restore and improve his physical health. He explains to Marianne how he feels, being physically weak and dealing with the uncertainty of whether or not the exercises he’s been given to do are even going to make a real difference or not. Because his condition is serious, even things that his doctor says are likely to help aren’t completely guaranteed to help. These feelings of uncertainty are a heavy burden for Mark to bear and another obstacle that he has to overcome. He finds it hard to continue making an effort when he knows that it might not make a difference in the long run. He needs to remind himself that, while trying his best may not be enough to help him walk again, doing nothing at all guarantees that he will lose that ability. A chance at improvement is better than no chance at all. Marianne provides support and encouragement for Mark, and seeing the results they experience from their efforts in the dream world encourages the children to do what they need to do in the waking world.

Although the book has fantasy themes, I thought that the descriptions of the children’s struggles in the real world and Marianne’s feelings about her illness were very realistic. Mark and Marianne have to use some different tactics when battling their illnesses because they have different problems. I think the book makes a good point that what’s necessary for one person’s situation isn’t always the same for another’s. Some people need to push themselves a little harder and tackle problems head-on while others need to develop a little more creativity and patience to work around their problems. In the end, Marianne and Mark do both. The children are an inspiration to each other, helping each other every step of the way.