The Shadows (The Books of Elsewhere, #1)

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The Shadows (The Books of Elsewhere #1)

by Jacqueline West (Goodreads Author)

3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 · rating details · 2,494 ratings · 485 reviews

Old Ms. McMartin is definitely dead. Now her crumbling Victorian mansion lies vacant. When eleven-year-old Olive and her dippy mathematician parents move in, she knows there's something odd about the place--not least the walls covered in strange antique paintings. But when Olive finds a pair of old spectacles in a dusty drawer, she discovers the most peculiar thing yet: Sh...more

Hardcover, 224 pages

Published June 9th 2010 by Dial Books for Young Readers

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The Shadows: The Books of Elsewhere: Volume 1
by Jacqueline West (Goodreads Author)

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Community Reviews

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Dec 01, 2012 Brenda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, favorites

I initially had this book in audio format but felt like I was missing something. A quick trip to the bookstore solved that one. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy the narrator, I just felt like I was missing out on flipping the pages, looking at the illustrations and reading the words. I fell in love with the wonderfully detailed pictures of the McMartin home and Olive trying on long gloves and combs in her hair. I was instantly lured into the book by the author’s style of desc...more

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Mar 07, 2010 Tatiana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: middle-school, fiction, mystery, friendship

Brilliant debut novel by Jacqueline West! I receive plenty of ARC's every year, but very few that leave me satisfied and excited for the follow-up.

SPOILER ALERT!!! This Victorian-esque mystery novel has a brilliant and strong heroine in Olive Dunwoody. She is an average girl with genius mathematical parents, and she feels her ordinary existence as she moves from school to school for her parents career. Olive's parents finally decide to put down some roots, and they choose the most unique, spook...more

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Oct 10, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a well-written middle-grade fantasy, mostly serious but with many humorous moments. Olive Dunwoody, age 11, moves into a spooky house with her affectionate but distant parents, does some exploring, has magical adventures that gradually become darker and more dangerous, gets in deeper than she bargained for, and ultimately has to fight for her life. There are daring rescues and desperate escapes. During the course of the story Olive makes friends and grows up a little.

The prose is sound....more

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Feb 15, 2010 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

Rarely do I, as a male, identify with female characters. However, in the case of Olive I was able to lose myself in the story completely. Elements of Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, and a touch of Madeleine L'Engle combine flawlessly to create a story that is both fascinating and engrossing. However, it is truly unfair to compare West to other authors without highlighting the fact that while her style and prose are reminiscent of the aforementioned others it is still unique and refreshing. Her worldbui...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Roberto Penas rated it 5 of 5 stars

A fun, gripping and easy to read middle grade novel. This could be considered more suspense/mystery with a touch of horror. West's voice keeps it from being dark (despite the protagonist being alone much of the time in essentially a haunted house) with just the right touch of humor and easy going matter of fact perspective. Olive is the strong, plucky geek that we all wish we were, a single child bookworm with parents so scholarly they push the boundaries of "eccentric" even for academic types....more

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Mar 03, 2013 Chris Murray rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adventure, fantasy, mystery, scary

Summary (Amazon.com)
With her record for making friends (or the lack thereof), Olive isn't expecting any different results when her parents buy the ancient mansion on Linden Street and they move into the new neighborhood. It will be just the three of them in this huge house, and the loneliness looms in all of the strange corners and empty rooms. It must have been similar for the previous owner; old Ms. McMartin lived there all by herself, along with her three cats. That is, until she died, right...more

Summary (Amazon.com)
With her record for making friends (or the lack thereof), Olive isn't expecting any different results when her parents buy the ancient mansion on Linden Street and they move into the new neighborhood. It will be just the three of them in this huge house, and the loneliness looms in all of the strange corners and empty rooms. It must have been similar for the previous owner; old Ms. McMartin lived there all by herself, along with her three cats. That is, until she died, right there in the mansion.

Olive does find parts of the house interesting, such as the zillions of paintings scattered on the walls, and the closets and drawers filled with old clothes and various items, including a pair of old glasses. But other locations are a bit creepy, like the gloomy basement where she feels like she's being watched, and the one painting in the hall where she could swear she sees a white shape moving through the trees. And then things really start to get weird.

Olive gets a visitor in the middle of the night. One of old Ms. McMartin's cats slips in through her bedroom window and introduces himself. His name is Horatio, and he comes with a warning: something in the house doesn't want them there. And then Olive discovers that when she puts on those old glasses, she can actually climb into the paintings, but there's something evil lurking inside those paintings --- and it wants Olive and her family gone. Turns out that the cats are witches’ familiars that belonged to the McMartin family for years. The original owner of the house, Aldous McMartin was the worst of the lot. He lived in Scotland until the townspeople there burned his house and destroyed the graveyard, but Aldous had everything that remained brought to America and build a house on top of it, the very same house that Olive’s parents bought. As a wizard/witch, he wanted to control life and started with paintings, little worlds that would come to life if seen through a pair of enchanted spectacles. He also created portraits that could come to life and could live forever, such as his granddaughter Annabelle's portrait. He also learned to trap people in paintings – not dead but not alive either – trapped in “Elsewhere” - like Morton, the little boy that Olive meets inside a painting. Aldous painted one last portrait of himself and put it in a locket that he gave to his granddaughter, Anabelle,with directions for her use the locket and the blood of a young innocent boy (Morton) to bring him back to live. Olive unknowingly frees Annabelle from her portrait. Annabelle manages to conjure Aldous’s spirit and the fight is on - Annabelle, Aldous vs Olive, Morton and the cats for control of the house. Olive and company are victorious as it appears that Annabelle and Aldous disappear forever, but there is no place for Morton to go except back into his portrait.

My Comments:
I thought the book was good but not spectacular. There are lots of things going on here and most of them are not revealed until the end of the book. Then there is a rush of explanations and action and everything is resolved somewhat quickly except for Morton, who Olive cannot return to his previous life. I guess that will be dealt with in book two second of the series, but I don’t know if I’m interested enough to keep reading. Olive is a strong and believable main character. She is scared enough of everything that is going on to create suspense, but her curiosity and investigation completely believable. The three cats have humorous personalities of their own, which add some comic relief to the story. Olive’s parents are math nerds and their infatuation with each other and everything mathematical is oddly cute. One of the most appealing parts of this book are the illustrations. The cover art, with Olive climbing through a painting is a great attention getter. The black and white illustrations inside not only depict the plots action, but also lend to the overall creepiness of the storyline. The language is descriptive and well written. Girls most likely would read this book – grades 4-6 which limits the audience for this book considerably.

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Feb 26, 2013 Robert Kent rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: middle-grade-ninja-reviews

FIRST PARAGRAPH: MS. MCMARTIN WAS definitely dead. It had taken some time for the neighbors to grow suspicious, since no one ever went in or came out of the old stone house on Linden Street anyway. However, there were several notable clues that things in the McMartin house were not as they should have been. The rusty mailbox began to bulge with odd and exotic mail-order catalogs, which eventually overflowed the gaping aluminum door and spilled out into the street. The gigantic jungle fern that h...more

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Dec 23, 2012 LJ rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: juvenile-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This quite tolerable creepy little fantasy is about a girl named Olive who moves into a dilapidated old house and finds that there is something not quite right about it. It is summer, so school and friends are not a part of the story. Likewise, Olive’s parents, two math professors are merely hovering around acting eccentric in the background. Olive, unlike her parents, is not mathematically inclined. She is more the type that lives in books, art and her imagination. So her parents by and large l...more This quite tolerable creepy little fantasy is about a girl named Olive who moves into a dilapidated old house and finds that there is something not quite right about it. It is summer, so school and friends are not a part of the story. Likewise, Olive’s parents, two math professors are merely hovering around acting eccentric in the background. Olive, unlike her parents, is not mathematically inclined. She is more the type that lives in books, art and her imagination. So her parents by and large leave her alone to do what she wishes and what she wishes is to explore all the ins and outs of the old Victorian house. She discovers a pair of spectacles among some leftover mementos from the previous owner and when she peers into the pictures hung about the house, she can see movement. The pictures are living. She also meets up with three talking cats, Horatio, Leopold and Harvey whose job it is to keep an eye on things and see that nothing evil happens to Olive or the house. They explain little to Olive about why they are the house’s sentries and it is only through Olive’s curiosity and persistent blundering that she slowly discovers the back story. Had they let her in on their secrets, Olive would not have accidentally allowed the spirit of the old man, Aldous McMartin to reanimate through her gullible trusting of the portrait of Aldous’s granddaughter, Annabelle McMartin, but then there would not have been much of a story. Not all the people in the paintings are menacing. Olive makes a friend of a boy called Morton who was trapped long ago in one of Aldous McMartin’s magical paintings. Morton, together with Olive and the cats help bring down the evil McMartin patron on a night when Olive’s parents are away at a math convention.

The bit where Olive Dunwoody’s parents would leave Olive, an eleven year old child alone overnight is a bit far-fetched. Funny to mention that in a book about magical paintings and an evil witch trying to regain control of a house, but there you have it. Without this weak plot point, there would not have been an evening featuring Olive alone at night in a haunted house, something that a story like this must have and that readers look forward too. The ending is quite satisfying and exciting with lots of scary near misses. Annabelle leads the trusting Olive into a painting in which there is a stormy sea. Olive almost drowns in that painting, but gets help from one of the cats. There are chases around the dark house that lead Olive to the attic where she devises a means to kill the now quite animated Aldus McMartin using mirrors and reflected light. This is supposed to be book one of an ongoing series. It is well-written and the characters, especially the cats, are a pleasure to encounter. I’m hoping that the next installment is as entertaining as the first.
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Dec 09, 2012 lia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: children-books

A good début from Jacqueline West.

Olive Dunwoody and her mathematical parents moved to an old Victorian house. They purchase everything, including the furnitures, paintings, jewellery and an old eyeglasses.

Alone, Olive wanders through the house and notice there are something wrong with the paintings. Firstly, it cannot be moved from the wall and secondly she thought she sees people moving in there.

During her wandering, Olive met three cats. These cats are no regular cats because they can talk....more

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Oct 04, 2012 Titis Wardhana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

seru, menegangkan, mendebarkan, tak terduga... (halah :p)

Setelah sekian lama tinggal di apartemen, Olive pindah ke rumah sungguhan yang kebetulan rumah tua milik Ms. McMartin yang misterius. Di sana Olive ketemu sama ketiga kucing Ms. McMartin yang bisa ngomong, Horatio yang berbulu oranye dan agak sombong, Leopold yang hitam dan seperti kesatria, dan Harevey yang belang2 serta suka bermain. Ternyata lukisan2 di rumah itu mengandung rahasia. Olive menemukan kacamata tua yang ternyata bisa membua...more

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Aug 05, 2012 LeAnne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: children-s-fiction, fantasy

If you are reading strictly as a fairytale, the premise of getting inside paintings in an old house is very intriguing. The tale is well-told with quirky characters (distracted mathematician parents and three whacky cats) and an eleven-year-old heroine with whom anyone who has felt out of place can identify. The author is not writing from a Christian perspective (daemons become good guys), but there is an overall theme of light overcoming darkness. I was surprised at the level of horror (albeit...more

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May 19, 2012 Barb Middleton rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, responsibility

I have a favorite pen. The ink seeps out of it so I hardly have to press the felt tip to the paper. Bliss... no callouses, no hand-cramps, just my handy-dandy pen and a cup of tea when I sit down to write. So imagine the irony when I come across this paragraph that I absolutely have to write in my journal and I can't find my blasted pen:

"In her bedroom, Olive dug through the closet looking for a pair of slippers to wear for protection against the chilly stone floor. But there were no slippers to

...more I have a favorite pen. The ink seeps out of it so I hardly have to press the felt tip to the paper. Bliss... no callouses, no hand-cramps, just my handy-dandy pen and a cup of tea when I sit down to write. So imagine the irony when I come across this paragraph that I absolutely have to write in my journal and I can't find my blasted pen:

"In her bedroom, Olive dug through the closet looking for a pair of slippers to wear for protection against the chilly stone floor. But there were no slippers to be found. Olive owned six pairs of slippers, but none of them were ever where they belonged. This was because Olive's body often did things without consulting Olive's brain, which was usually busy with something much more interesting than putting things away in the right place. A second pair of socks would have to do."

Olive, I mutter, grabbing a ball-point pen I know will leave my hand cramped, I know exactly how you feel. The reader immediately gets a feel for Olive's creative, random nature contrasted with her nerdy, brilliant mathematical parents. At dinner, Olive asks for a small helping of lima beans and her mother says, "Twenty-four for you, then." And while you might not be able to relate to Olive (like myself), you will definitely laugh.

Olive has just moved into a creepy Victorian stone house with a scary basement, talking cats, and paintings where the objects move. She's kind of lonely in the big old house but has a blast exploring its nooks and crannies. When she finds a pair of spectacles she realizes she can climb into the paintings and of course, jumps in the painting that is creepy. She's also intrigued because she can see a boy running through it. Meet Morton. His skin looks like a painting or porcelain but he wants out of the painting. He explains that a bad man brought him there and when a dark shadow chases them she impulsively yanks Morton out of the painting with the help of one of the cats and puts him in another one that is less threatening.

Her next painting adventure involves meeting a women in a painting and having tea with her making her first friend. She also breaks the tea cup, puts 10 cubes of sugar in her tea, and thwacks her head on the picture frame when exiting, but she's having a hey-ho time until she starts to find out things from people in other paintings about the bad man that put them there. The man who has now targeted Olive because she lives in his house. The man who wants to kill her.

The pacing is fast, the humor keeps the story from being too frightening for young readers, and the characters are kooky and fun. The writing is very descriptive and the author creates a setting that is easy to get lost in. Mrs. Dewey she describes as looking as if she had been stacked on top of each other like a snowman. The cats are like the Three Musketeers with one cat being the thespian. He switches his voice using a pirate voice or a Shakespearean voice, to name a few. He reminded me of my sister who used to do that except she was either a Looney Tune character or the lion in the Wizard of Oz.

There were some nice plot twists and I was kept guessing as to what would happen next. When all looks lost Olive recognizes that the mess they are in is really because of her actions and it was refreshing to see her take responsibility for them. Only a couple of times did I wonder why the cats do not give Olive necessary information. The ploy is to keep the reader guessing as to whether or not the cats are helping or hindering Olive and the author gives the reason that they are serving the McMartins but I thought it was weak. I thought they should have had a curse on them similar to the necklace.

Morton changes from a frightened mean boy to one willing to stand up to evil. It was funny when he was hiding under the bed and then crawls out to explain how he had decided to fight the bad man and says he's strong flexing his spaghetti arm. Morton and Olive become friends in the story and Olive has to apologize for not believing in him. Morton is younger than Olive and their friendship requires Olive to be kind and not be the know-it-all older brat. She is a good person who learns from her mistakes.

This book reminded me of Breadcrumbs with how the author describes cold weather. It is like another character in the story the way it pervades the pages with images of snowmen, ice daggers, and crystals. West does such a good job getting the senses involved that I was left with a frosty nose a few times. A fun fantasy read.

Reading Level 5.1
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Mar 06, 2012 IndyPL Kids Book Blog rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adventure, fantasy

Olive moves into an old Victorian mansion that is just as the previous (now dead) owner left it. The furniture, the clocks, the mirrors, the paintings on the walls - all are exactly the way they were the moment the former owner died…as well as the clothes and personal items neatly folded in the drawers.

Isolated in the big old house and ignored by her parents, Olive does what any self-respecting kid would do. She explores. She opens doors and cupboards. She goes through drawers and wonders about...more

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Oct 25, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kids-fantasy, reading-rocks

Olive and her parents just moved into an old house. She feels very creepy in the house and starts to uncover some of it's long kept secrets. In the hall by her bedroom there's a painting of a dark forest that scares Olive. Her mother tries to take it down but it holds fast to the wall and will not budge. Her mother doesn't think much of it but Olive goes around the house checking all of the paintings and they are all stuck fast to the walls. Then she begins to see things move inside the painting...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Jackie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: animals-cats, art, children-fiction, magic-magicians, mystery, fantasy, strong-female-character, 5013, bluestem-nominee-2013

Olive Dunwoody, 11, is a lonely child of loving, yet totally clueless mathematician parents. All three have just moved to the slightly creepy, vine-encrusted mansion on Linden Street. Left mostly to her own devices and imaginings, Olive sets out to explore every nook and cranny of this huge, stuck-in-the-past house. She finds an array of odd, yet seemingly foreboding portraits and pictures adorning the walls. Every once in a while, she imagines (or does she?) something moving in a corner of one...more

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Jul 09, 2011 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cha-cha-potential, young-critics-potential, fantasy

This one grabbed me pretty much right away, with the description of Olive's mathematically loopy and smitten parents, and the character of a lonely girl who has moved too many times and never really fit in.The growing sense of lurking danger in their big old (new-to-them) house got me next. I found this really creative, with the magic glasses enabling Olive to enter the paintings, and the talking, snarky cats--are they good, or evil? What starts off sort of charming--lonely girl, mysterious hous...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Clarabel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Olive Dunwoody a onze ans et des parents totalement absorbés par leur boulot. Ils viennent d'emménager dans une grande maison de Lindon Street où la fillette va explorer tous les coins et recoins avec une pointe d'appréhension. Les tableaux, surtout, lui font peur. Mais impossible de les déplacer - ils sont collés aux murs ! Ce n'est pas tout, Olive rencontre un chat qui se met à lui parler et se présente sous le nom d'Horatio. Il la met en garde contre la maison, il semblerait que les nouveaux...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Linda rated it 5 of 5 stars

I want more! I hope this is a long series, because I just love the main character, Olive. She is your classic outcast, the kid who has no friends, until she meets a boy who happens to live in a painting. She can't figure out how to help him, but she tries, and in so doing, incurs the wrath of a vengeful spirit whose name she doesn't know. Three talking cats try to help her, but are they really her friends?
With elements of fantasy mixed with real-life concerns of the deepest fears of a young girl...more

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Apr 02, 2011 Emz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Let me start off by saying that I love books written with the child in mind. Though not as complex as as some of the fiction written for adults, both in content and in form--the children's book (targeted to 9-12 readers) is not without its own standards and the author, Jacqueline West meets them brilliantly.

Having just received my check, I decided to indulge myself in a little ebook spree and bought The Shadows (The Books of Elsewhere vol. 1), from Amazon on a whim. Four hours later, I was glad...more Let me start off by saying that I love books written with the child in mind. Though not as complex as as some of the fiction written for adults, both in content and in form--the children's book (targeted to 9-12 readers) is not without its own standards and the author, Jacqueline West meets them brilliantly.

Having just received my check, I decided to indulge myself in a little ebook spree and bought The Shadows (The Books of Elsewhere vol. 1), from Amazon on a whim. Four hours later, I was glad I did. The premise was simple enough and almost Coralinesque--minus the creepy button eyes.

Olive, a young girl, moves into a strange old house with her parents and discovers that her new home holds many dark secrets. The darkness that people inevitably find themselves in whenever they flip the light switch, holds new meaning in this house. Here, the darkness seems to have a mind of its own and it watches Olive with keen eyes. The secret to this phenomenon lies in the paintings--paintings that hang from the walls in almost every room in her large home. Some are disconcerting, while others appear more harmless. With a pair of mysterious glasses, Olive is able to climb into the portraits and experience the world inside. Needless to say, she finds herself in trouble much of the time and this eventually culminates into an action packed battle between the light and the darkness.

For the sake of remaining spoiler-free, I won't give too much away, but I will say that West does a remarkable job of holding a reader's interest. Though there were parts I saw coming, she wrote in such a way that I never felt cheated. The characters are all well-defined and I especially enjoyed the personalities of the three anthropomorphic cats. I also envied the way she described certain things, and I found myself thinking more than once, 'how come I never thought of that?' As for the technical aspects, it is also written well. The syntax is never awkward and the dialogue is never unnecessarily wordy.

All in all, I'd most definitely recommend that all lovers of the children's genre add this one to their collection.
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Mar 16, 2011 Montanamarynotmartha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, middle-grade, paranormal-fantasy

This volume by Jacqueline West, The Shadows, is first in the series of Elsewhere. Right away - loved the cover. If you see it in person, the cover actually reflects light and looks like it's glowing. The drawing is a perfect likeness to Olive, the main character. Each illustration is a mix of creepiness and adorability.

I am amazed by Jacquline West and her ability to pack in multiple story lines, adventure and several twists with a few heapfuls of angst in 241 pages. She tells the tale of Olive...more This volume by Jacqueline West, The Shadows, is first in the series of Elsewhere. Right away - loved the cover. If you see it in person, the cover actually reflects light and looks like it's glowing. The drawing is a perfect likeness to Olive, the main character. Each illustration is a mix of creepiness and adorability.

I am amazed by Jacquline West and her ability to pack in multiple story lines, adventure and several twists with a few heapfuls of angst in 241 pages. She tells the tale of Olive Dunwoody moving into her family's first home - the McMartin mansion. This is no ordinary creepy old house - it's a keeper of secret portals disguised as paintings. Olive discovers a pair of enchanted spectacles that allow the paintings to come to life when she looks through them and even enters them. Olive meets a distraught boy, Morton, in a painting of her own street and works to free him. Olive battles the evil that lurks in the paintings in a way that parallels Christianity. In order to explain that comparison I'd have to spoil the story so I'll just leave the ending for you to discover.

I loved Olive's spunkiness in this story. When she battles evil old Aldous McMartin, she stubbornly tells him, "I am not afraid of you," and later "Is that supposed to be scary? Because it isn't." Even when he induces the feeling of spiders covering her body, causing her stomach to lurch, she simply tells herself This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real. In today's world of catastrophes and powers that be, who wouldn't want to be like Olive?

The best part of the story was how she threw in twists early into the story line as well as in the middle and end. The story never sagged and was full of surprises. Olive's predicament is resolved, but not the entire big picture, leaving the door wide open for a sequel but not to the extreme that it weakens the book. The only thing I didn't care and took my by surprise was the dark elements of witches discussed by the cats. The sequel gives a hint to potions and such. I may decide not to read the sequel if it's based on dark arts, but will be anxious to check out any works by Jacqueline West.

I would recommend this book for upper-middle grade because of the scary elements.

I give this book ***** 5 stars
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Feb 12, 2011 Charlyn Trussell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, ghost-story, horror, mystery, series, strong-female-character

Olive and her mathematician parents have always lived in apartments. Now they have purchased an old home, complete with furnishings, and it has become like a museum to Olive. A solitary child left to her own devices and without friends of any age in a new location, she wanders through the house and goes through the contents of drawers and closets. She finds it strange that the paintings on the wall are immovable, stuck fast to the walls. She finds it even stranger that the old spectacles that sh...more

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Dec 29, 2010 nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, cybils

This book reminded me strongly of Coraline, with Olive distanced from other children her age and the child of pre-occupied parents, but the tales quickly diverge there. The Shadows is less of a morality tale and more the story of a girl coming into her bravery. The central mystery of the house is well-plotted and wrapped neatly, although the promise of a series is evident from the book title right on through to the last sentence. As I've said before, I'm not the biggest proponent of talking anim...more

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Oct 31, 2010 Sandra Stiles rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, middle-grades

I've seen this book on several blogs and finally purchased it. The idea that you could put on a pair of spectacles and go through a picture was an idea that really fascinated me. It must have fascinated the main character in this book. Olive Dunwoody and her parents have always lived in apartments. Now her parents have purchased an old victorian style house. As mathematicians they have fallen in love with all of the antiques in the house. They don't care that the previous owner died there. Olive...more

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Sep 29, 2011 NewFranklin School rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ms-patterson, olivia-a

This mystery/fantasy book really surprised me with how great it is, and I can't wait to read the next book (it won't be out until July 2011).

Merrit- In this book a girl named Olive moves to a house with three talking cats and a bunch very strange paintings. One day while she is rummaging through some drawers in the lavender room she finds a pair of old wire rimmed glasses she finds out that when she has the glasses on she can do amazing things to find out what you have to read the book!

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Oct 15, 2010 Monster added it

Shelves: scary-books-for-kids

Meet Olive, an 11 year old girl new to the neighborhood whose family has just moved into a mansion with quite a past. As Olive explores the house’s many rooms and their contents, she rushes headlong, literally, into unearthing the dark history of the mansion’s previous inhabitants, when she finds a pair of glasses tucked away in the drawer. When Olive dons them, she learns there is far more to the strange, dark paintings that seem permanently affixed to the walls than she thought – she can actua...more

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Sep 23, 2010 Amanda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Olive is a character many kids will relate to even if they have never had to move away to a new home and don't know anyone around. She loves her new home but she's also a little bit scared of parts of it. She's never lived outside of an apartment before and this house is huge and old. It's obviously holding many memories and secrets. Olive loves exploring but she refuses to go to the basement because it's dark and a little creepy. In exploring the house she finds a pair of spectacles that let he...more Olive is a character many kids will relate to even if they have never had to move away to a new home and don't know anyone around. She loves her new home but she's also a little bit scared of parts of it. She's never lived outside of an apartment before and this house is huge and old. It's obviously holding many memories and secrets. Olive loves exploring but she refuses to go to the basement because it's dark and a little creepy. In exploring the house she finds a pair of spectacles that let her move in and out of the paintings in the house (that are stuck to the wall and cannot be moved). As the story moves along she wonders more and more about just what the house is hiding. She meets people in each painting, including a boy named Morton who talks about "the bad man" and is trying to get out of the painting. She meets talking cats and many other characters that give her clues to what's going on but she is nowhere near prepared for what happens.

I first heard about this book at the conference for the Children and Young People's Division of ILF. The presenter, owner of an independent bookseller in Indianapolis called Kids Ink (plug because it's awesome) was telling us about new books for kids that she loved. She introduced this book by telling us it was spooky and our kids would have to be brave to read it. She also said fans of Coraline would love it. I was sold. I went down the road to Borders later that day to see if they had it in stock (I know I should have bought it from Kids Ink but I didn't have money on me at the time) and immediately forgot the title of the book, though I was sure I would remember the cover.

A few weeks later and I finally got it from the library. This book is excellent for those kids you know who are around 4th to 6th grade and like some suspense in their books. It completely lived up to the hype and was as suspenseful as some books for older readers that I have read, keeping me reading through to the last page. It is a little scary and I would put it on a level with Coraline as far as reader's interest and suspense.

The Shadows is Volume 1 of what will surely be one of my new favorite series for kids. Perfect for this time of year as we get closer to Halloween.

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Aug 14, 2010 Eva Mitnick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: children, fantasy

There are some similarities to Neil Gaiman's Coraline in this story. Because Olive's parents are mathematicians whose minds are on numbers and not always on their daughter, Olive is left on her own to explore her new house. As in Coraline, there are strange and unnerving parallels to the real world in the paintings Olive enters - in one, she finds a grim and shadowy simulacrum of her own street. Coraline was aided by a slinky and mysterious cat, and Olive has not one but three feline protectors...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Angie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: children-s-fiction, magic, mystery, website

Olive Dunwoody doesn't fit in with her mathematical genius parents or any of the kids at school. She has moved around too often to make real friends. But her parents decide to settle down and they buy the spooky, quirky house where Ms. McMartin died at the age of 104. The house has many mysterious knooks and crannies and creepy paintings. The house came with lots of interesting things left over from the McMartin family. Olive discovers a pair of glasses that allow her to see into the paintings;...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Gita Ganesha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Yes, I do judge the book by its cover.

Sebenarnya ga sengaja melihat buku ini di rak buku GM M’toz, bukunya tersembunyi. Tapi ketika melihatnya langsung “klik”. This is what I called ‘chemistry’. Tanpa pikir dua kali langsung memasukkan buku ini ke tas belanjaan. Dan ternyata feeling ku benar. This is a great book.

Ini bukan novel cinta-cintaan. Malah sepertinya bisa disebut buku anak-anak. Perasaan saya ketika membaca buku seperti membaca Coraline, Dial A Ghost, Suddenly Supernatural, dan novel-n...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Carolyn Roys rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: bluestem-2013

I sincerely hope I can figure out a way to enjoy these books for younger students so I have a means of encouraging them to read. One thing I need to get over is the way I detest talking animals. In here the cats are conspirators in her plot to keep her parents safe but they are also hiding a big secret from her. And of course the other thing I detest is people who blindly run toward danger like watching a horror movie and you are screaming at the screen to not go into the basement. Sigh. Stupid...more

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“Ms. McMartin had no close family. Her nearest relative was a distant cousin who had recently died in Shanghai, after a severe allergic reaction to a bowl of turtle and arsenic soup.” — 3 people liked it

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