Scary Book Review: The House with a Clock in Its Walls

ALL HALLOWS READ

Scary Book Review: The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs, drawings by Edward Gorey

Clocks disarm me, with their incessant nagging of the marching of time, and the idea of a clock to end the world is well, fitting with my dislike. It would be a clock to ruin all the fun of living with a wizard. My hero, a fat teenager loses his parents and has to live with his uncle Johnathan.

A wizard Uncle! With a good witch Florence for a neighbor who makes delicious late night snacks like cookies and donuts with spiced cider. When I wasn’t scared for Lewis I was jealous of the yummy things Florence made for Lewis.

Being the new kid in town brings challenges like making friends and helping your wizard uncle defeat an evil wizard from ending the world. Lewis’ first friend is Tarby, the school’s baseball star with a broken arm. They met one day while Lewis struggles with his skill at baseball. Tired of being the last one picked Lewis tried to teach himself how to hit a ball; enter Tarby, who seeing Lewis’ failed attempts, comes over and shows him some tricks.

Until Tarby’s cast comes off the boys spend some quality time together and Lewis thinks he has found a friend. When Tarby slowly leaves Lewis behind for his other friends, Lewis tries to impress and keep his friend by raising the dead. Unfortunately for Lewis this seals the doom of his friendship with Tarby while releasing a dead witch from her tomb that once lived in her uncle’s house: Selena Izard.

Lewis’ uncle had moved into the house knowing the Izard’s had been powerful workers in dark magic. He took the house to make sure he could counter their evil with his good magic. Unwittingly Lewis brought the Izard evil back into the world and back into his very house by trying to impress Tarby.

In the end though Lewis discovers people will be his friend because they like him and that courage helps us overcome mistakes (like releasing an evil witch from her tomb) from our past.

My recommendation: After School Reading

Explanation of Ranking:
Scary – Daylight Reading
Sort of Scary – After Work Reading
Kid Scary – After School Reading

This is the last in a series of scary book reviews I am doing for All Hallows Read, a new tradition of giving scary stories instead of candy on Halloween.

Next week I will have a HALLOWEEN surprise for all the loyal readers of the Scary Book Review Series.

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