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Mystery of the Empty House
"Look!" cried Pat. "There's a light in the empty house!"
"Impossible," says Barbara. "That place has been deserted for ages."
But there is a light...moving past the darkened windows. Someone - or something - is prowling there in the dead of the night!
"Come on," whispers Barbara. "We're going to find out what's going on - before it's too late!"
"Impossible," says Barbara. "That place has been deserted for ages."
But there is a light...moving past the darkened windows. Someone - or something - is prowling there in the dead of the night!
"Come on," whispers Barbara. "We're going to find out what's going on - before it's too late!"
159 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
2 people are currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Sterling
65 books32 followersDorothy Sterling (Dannenberg) was a Jewish-American writer and historian.
She was born and grew up in New York City, attended Wellesley College, and graduated from Barnard College in 1934. After college, she worked as a journalist and writer in New York for several years. In 1937, she married Philip Sterling, also a writer. In the 1940s, she worked for Life Magazine for 8 years. In early 1968, 448 writers and editors including Dorothy put a full-page ad in the New York Post declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the Vietnam War.
Dorothy was the author of more than 30 books, mainly non-fiction historical works for children on the origins of the women's and anti-slavery movements, civil rights, segregation, and nature, as well as mysteries. She has won several awards for her writings, including the Carter G. Woodson Book Award from the National Council For The Social Studies For The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell The Story Of Reconstruction, in 1976.
She was born and grew up in New York City, attended Wellesley College, and graduated from Barnard College in 1934. After college, she worked as a journalist and writer in New York for several years. In 1937, she married Philip Sterling, also a writer. In the 1940s, she worked for Life Magazine for 8 years. In early 1968, 448 writers and editors including Dorothy put a full-page ad in the New York Post declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the Vietnam War.
Dorothy was the author of more than 30 books, mainly non-fiction historical works for children on the origins of the women's and anti-slavery movements, civil rights, segregation, and nature, as well as mysteries. She has won several awards for her writings, including the Carter G. Woodson Book Award from the National Council For The Social Studies For The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell The Story Of Reconstruction, in 1976.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 12, 2022
Such a great find. I made sure to turn off my adult skepticism while reading and tried to view it with a child’s enthusiasm. 11 year old Pat moves to the country. She makes friends over a baseball game and after hitting a homer into an empty house, learns a lot of history. The house is from Revolutionary War time and there just might be a hidden treasure. The kids spend most of summer vacation trying to find the treasure. Along the way we learn about spies and codes. If I had read this as a kid, I would have been sad that it wasn’t a series.
July 9, 2011
I love these old Scholastic books from the 60s!
October 23, 2023
It's the mid-1950s and Pat Harrison is excited that her family has moved from a cramped apartment in New York City to a country house in Haven. She's never climbed a tree or ridden a bike on a street without traffic or made friends with any boys (having attended an all-girls school). But all of these things are in her future...as well as solving an old mystery tied to the Revolutionary War.
Behind her new house is a deserted, Revolutionary-era house that looks like it ought to be haunted. It belongs to the Woodruff family who are about to lose it because they haven't been able to pay the back taxes or keep the house up after the father died in a plane crash during the Korean War. There have always been rumors that there was a treasure hidden in the Woodruff house, but no one's ever found it. When Pat and Barbara, one of her new friends, see a flashlight bobbing around in the house one night, they decide to get the boys (Nat, Johnny, and Sam Woodruff, and Jim) and investigate. It isn't long before the kids are on a treasure hunt hoping to find something valuable enough to save the Woodruff home from the tax auction block.
A very good juvenile mystery--one I know I would have loved had I discovered it when young. I love the fact that despite Nat's disgust at "Girls!" (he's at that age when boys either think girls are icky or begins to realize they are more interesting than ever), there isn't any "girls can't do that" going on here. And in fact Pat and Barbara each make huge contributions to the discovery of the treasure. It was fun to watch the kids work together to solve the mystery and it was also good to learn a bit of history (though fictionalized for the story--it was based on very real historical fact).
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
Behind her new house is a deserted, Revolutionary-era house that looks like it ought to be haunted. It belongs to the Woodruff family who are about to lose it because they haven't been able to pay the back taxes or keep the house up after the father died in a plane crash during the Korean War. There have always been rumors that there was a treasure hidden in the Woodruff house, but no one's ever found it. When Pat and Barbara, one of her new friends, see a flashlight bobbing around in the house one night, they decide to get the boys (Nat, Johnny, and Sam Woodruff, and Jim) and investigate. It isn't long before the kids are on a treasure hunt hoping to find something valuable enough to save the Woodruff home from the tax auction block.
A very good juvenile mystery--one I know I would have loved had I discovered it when young. I love the fact that despite Nat's disgust at "Girls!" (he's at that age when boys either think girls are icky or begins to realize they are more interesting than ever), there isn't any "girls can't do that" going on here. And in fact Pat and Barbara each make huge contributions to the discovery of the treasure. It was fun to watch the kids work together to solve the mystery and it was also good to learn a bit of history (though fictionalized for the story--it was based on very real historical fact).
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
August 10, 2018
At first I thought Sterling was going to write a social-realism novel about how Pat adjusts from New York City to small semi-rural town upstate, makes friends and decides she's too old for dolls etc.
Instead, we are given a faux-history lesson that never really happened, and are expected to believe that a bunch of kids spent the whole summer checking fireplaces brick by brick. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. Especially the little boys, after a day or two they'd be looking for something fun to do, even in the 1950s.
If the history student is so trustworthy, why did he go into the house after dark, and without talking to any adults in town about it? was just one of the questions I had as an adult reader. Not to mention the tiresome old "George Washington and Lafayette slept here" trope. If old George had slept half the places he is said to have done, he would have had to carry all his belongings on his back like a snail.
Very disappointing and I'd like to have my two hours back. The best thing about it was that my edition was from the Weekly Reader, a distributor I had forgotten about that made my childhood a joy with their inexpensive paperback editions.
Instead, we are given a faux-history lesson that never really happened, and are expected to believe that a bunch of kids spent the whole summer checking fireplaces brick by brick. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. Especially the little boys, after a day or two they'd be looking for something fun to do, even in the 1950s.
If the history student is so trustworthy, why did he go into the house after dark, and without talking to any adults in town about it? was just one of the questions I had as an adult reader. Not to mention the tiresome old "George Washington and Lafayette slept here" trope. If old George had slept half the places he is said to have done, he would have had to carry all his belongings on his back like a snail.
Very disappointing and I'd like to have my two hours back. The best thing about it was that my edition was from the Weekly Reader, a distributor I had forgotten about that made my childhood a joy with their inexpensive paperback editions.
February 3, 2024
It does not matter in which year or for which age it was intended: any well plotted, exciting non crime mystery intrigues me. Youth novels can overdo immature drama but once you get by it, adventures usually coast along. The way Dorothy Sterling wrote this 1960 story did not work. The aim of my review, which feedback is for, is on identifying what that was and explaining my two star grade.
Originally entitled “Mystery Of The Old Post Box”: “Mystery Of The Empty House” was clearly educational material. Fiction is a great source of learning for me. Information dumping is another matter, as is making a resolution rely on readers assimilating a lot of specific regional lore. Dorothy was clearly thinking of children in her country but literature does travel. I have a copy in Manitoba, this year in 2024, don’t I? Her protagonists’ barrage of local history recitations could have been shaped to make this story accessible and interesting generally.
I love witnessing characters reason out clues with information but the story was dry to me, until the kids physically searched fireplace bricks. Readers need to know that for wartime spies, postal boxes were secret places for exchanging messages. A family in need of money hoped to locate valuable artifacts in such a place, in their old house.
Authors must ask themselves, does realism matter in a fictional adventure? This novel already turned me off with arguing and the boys in need being awfully unlikeable. I suppose townspeople might not help pay taxes on a heritage home. Since it was owned by the same family for hundreds of years, its hiding places should have been well searched out! Suddenly seeking out crucial archaeology and history, the same week a bank threatened to steal a home, was an improbable cliché.
Originally entitled “Mystery Of The Old Post Box”: “Mystery Of The Empty House” was clearly educational material. Fiction is a great source of learning for me. Information dumping is another matter, as is making a resolution rely on readers assimilating a lot of specific regional lore. Dorothy was clearly thinking of children in her country but literature does travel. I have a copy in Manitoba, this year in 2024, don’t I? Her protagonists’ barrage of local history recitations could have been shaped to make this story accessible and interesting generally.
I love witnessing characters reason out clues with information but the story was dry to me, until the kids physically searched fireplace bricks. Readers need to know that for wartime spies, postal boxes were secret places for exchanging messages. A family in need of money hoped to locate valuable artifacts in such a place, in their old house.
Authors must ask themselves, does realism matter in a fictional adventure? This novel already turned me off with arguing and the boys in need being awfully unlikeable. I suppose townspeople might not help pay taxes on a heritage home. Since it was owned by the same family for hundreds of years, its hiding places should have been well searched out! Suddenly seeking out crucial archaeology and history, the same week a bank threatened to steal a home, was an improbable cliché.
February 23, 2015
Dated, absolutely. A girl putting on pedal-pushers to play baseball? Oh, Please! Didactic? That too. Stopping in the middle of the action to explain about George Washington and his network of Revolutionary Spies? YAWN!
But on the other hand...and this is important to me. That girl IS playing baseball. With boys. Not very well, perhaps. But at no point did the author stop to say "because Pat was a girl". Rather it's more likely that this is because she's played baseball only in her school's gym, having just moved out from New York City to the suburbs; this is the first time she's played proper baseball out in a field.
Not to mention the fact that the girl in question then wallops out a home run...which leads to the primary action of the book: discovering the treasure in the Revolutionary War-era home, which belongs to three of the four boys with whom she's playing.
Or rather belonged, before the family lost it because they couldn't pay the taxes, much less keep up the house in the way it needed to be--the furnace was, apparently, installed some time shortly after the Civil War, almost a century before this book was set.
(Rest assured, baseball has very little to do with the book. It's about family pride, and settling in to a new neighborhood, and learning a bit about history while we're at it. This is just what struck me about my copy of it.
But on the other hand...and this is important to me. That girl IS playing baseball. With boys. Not very well, perhaps. But at no point did the author stop to say "because Pat was a girl". Rather it's more likely that this is because she's played baseball only in her school's gym, having just moved out from New York City to the suburbs; this is the first time she's played proper baseball out in a field.
Not to mention the fact that the girl in question then wallops out a home run...which leads to the primary action of the book: discovering the treasure in the Revolutionary War-era home, which belongs to three of the four boys with whom she's playing.
Or rather belonged, before the family lost it because they couldn't pay the taxes, much less keep up the house in the way it needed to be--the furnace was, apparently, installed some time shortly after the Civil War, almost a century before this book was set.
(Rest assured, baseball has very little to do with the book. It's about family pride, and settling in to a new neighborhood, and learning a bit about history while we're at it. This is just what struck me about my copy of it.
August 28, 2011
Another enjoyable Powell's find. I knew that Sterling had written The Brownie Scout Mystery, but I knew nothing of her impressive life story and her "lucid, well- researched portrayals of historical African Americans written decades before multiculturalism became mainstream." (See Los Angeles Times obituary here.)
This book is as white-bread as The Brownie Scout Mystery, but it does include Revolutionary War history and decidedly un-cookie-cutter kids with real, even crabby, personalities. I like how the kids work together to solve a mystery and help the Paines.
This book is as white-bread as The Brownie Scout Mystery, but it does include Revolutionary War history and decidedly un-cookie-cutter kids with real, even crabby, personalities. I like how the kids work together to solve a mystery and help the Paines.
August 31, 2012
Very good story from my old Scholastic Book Club bootie. Though old, I don't think the story is dated except for maybe the naming of the girls (Barbara, Pat) and the fact that one of the characters' father died in the Korean war. Into all this a little bit of history, secret hiding places, spies and puzzles.
Pretty good for a juvenile story.
Pretty good for a juvenile story.
June 28, 2014
I am so glad to discover Dorothy Sterling. Her writing moved smoothly and kept me interested. I was surprised at how quickly I read the book. I loved the pieces of history sprinkled through the story. It was done very well, without slowing the plot. I look forward to reading more of her books.
September 20, 2011
A cool old book that was fun to read. More a children's book than YA, and fairly short, so it was a quick read.
February 9, 2017
I love this story and how the kids solve the mystery. This is a great story to get kids interested in history. This is another book I wish I had when I was a kid.
August 15, 2016
This was my gateway book to mystery stories. I read it over and over as a child and I still love it!
December 31, 2025
It cleaned up too neatly with the scholar's additional last minute info; but this was a fun one regardless because no matter how dated the material or old the setting, it was just as engrossing to see how the mystery tied itself up. It also reminded me of how I copied used the same code to pass secret messages with my friends in grade school -- the nostalgia of this alone cements this as a classic for me.
March 19, 2019
Eleven-year-old Pat is thrilled to be moving to the country, where she will be able to ride her bike and climb trees. She soon makes friends with a group of neighbor children — Jim, Barbara, and the three Paine brothers. The Paine family is about to lose the family mansion for back taxes. unless they can find the lost treasure, before the deadline. Interesting story.
July 28, 2024
The historical fiction part of this was pretty cute and realistic. The rest, however, was meh. The only character I really liked was not very significant to the story, apart from befriending the protagonist at the start. There was a lot of bickering and a lot of slang.
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May 28, 2020bien
March 28, 2021
Another childhood favorite that still holds up for me.
December 26, 2023
It's a nice pleasant book from simpler times. There's a historical element in addition to the mystery.
February 16, 2024
I do love a good treasure hunt. This one was a bit too conveniently resolved, but it was still quite enjoyable.
September 3, 2025
Old, vintage children’s books are fun to read! I give this quick, easy read 4 stars. Great story for about 8-12 year olds. Good wholesome book! This will be a keeper!
July 29, 2018
A childhood favorite of my family
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews