By Katherine L. Holmes
Buy new: $9.95
Customer Rating:
First tagged by D. Cocchio "RunningDeerBooks"
Customer tags: childrens books, holmes, halloween, adventure, enchanted, fantasy
Review & Description
At this Halloween party, costumes make the child. Transformed during an enchanted journey, Lushina children try out their dreamed identities. Halloween night, Sadie and her neighborhood friends slip past cardboard cut-outs of the painter Mistral and a lady at the leaf-covered house on Windward Road. Looking at a wall mural, they are transported beyond the room to a Halloween party on a star where their costumes become real. As Fortuneteller, Sadie only has to look in her crystal ball to help the others with their transformations. Her friend Candy has become the Homecoming Queen. The neighbor boy has become George Washington and his brother is a musician in the star band. Sadie’s brother turns into a zebra and her sister begins blessing people because she is a priest. Other children in Sadie’s grade school make up a bizarre community of star people who crown the Queen and watch the President’s revolt. That begins the adventures of Sadie and her enchanted friends. Then Mistral’s woman friend finds that her star-of-sapphire necklace is missing. The found thief confesses that he stole it for a treasure hunt that takes up the latter chapters of this madcap fantasy. Read more
The House in Windward Leaves is sure to capture the attention of young readers through the use of creative and whimsical characters and an interesting plot that carries the reader into another world.
ReplyDeleteThe story begins with the tale of friends trick-or-treating who stumble upon a house which takes them on a fantastical journey. The costumes transform Sadie and her friends into the characters they are dressed up as. Suddenly, the friends have powers and abilities that would not have been possible in the real world which allows the author to ingeniously include the struggles of the character’s personal lives. The world created by the author is imaginative and exciting especially when the loss of a necklace leads to more adventure in this new world.
Her use of similes, metaphors and alliteration is perfect for using this book in the classroom. As an educator myself, it is sometimes very difficult to find a story that would interest students enough to teach figurative language but this book has all of these concepts in abundance.
The House in Windward Leaves is a great read for girls with the ability to also capture the interest of boys. The ease in reading is perfect for the struggling young reader looking for an interesting and adventure-filled book.