by Jonathan Auxier
First sentence: “The calendar said early March, but the smell in the air said late October.”
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Content: It’s a very slow, very atmospheric book. Probably not good for those struggling, though I think it would make an amazing read-aloud. It’s in the middle-grade section (grades 3-5) in the bookstore.

It’s the late 1800s, and Molly and Kip are siblings are in England looking for work because of the potato famine in Ireland. They’re desperate, so they’ll take anything, even a job at the Windsor house… a place which many people say are haunted. Molly — who is a storyteller at heart — and Kip don’t really have much of a choice, so they accept the job and head to the house, not knowing the fate that awaits them.

The family — father Bertrand, mother Constance, and two children, Alistair and Penny — is a strange one. Guarded, pale, and most of all, adamant that Molly and Kip stay away from the green door.

And then there’s the tree: the gnarled, old, dead, black tree that takes up a good portion of the yard.

Of course, things don’t go well for Molly and Kip: they soon notice that every night a tall, shadow man comes to water and take care of the tree. And to dig holes. And no, none of this is a happy thing. It comes down on Molly and Kip to figure out a way to not only get out of there, but to stop the evil from perpetrating.

The jacket flap compared this one to Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe, and I don’t think it was that. (Maybe Irving; I haven’t read him in a long time.) What it was, however, was a ripping good yarn. Auxier utilized storytelling in the writing of this, and it showed. I could imagine someone standing in front of an audience, spinning this tale out, having everyone on the edge of their seat: will they make it? It’s a long tale, sure, one for multiple nights, but one that will have the listeners engrossed.

But as a reader? It was good, sure, but not great. I liked it, yes, but didn’t love it. I was gratified that Molly (and Kip) ended up being heroes of their own story; there was a time I was worried adults would step in and solve the problem, but Auxier is smarter than that. It was a good read, but I think it’d be a better one if read aloud.