SOLVED. Children's Coming-of-age? novel. Friends see a boy in a window, he's not allowed outside. One day he disappears, kids try to find out what happened. Read around 1998. Spoiler ahead. [s]

[Emily]

This book is about some school aged friends (I think a boy and a girl) who spot a boy of the same age in a window. I think they somehow get to know him, even though he is not allowed outside. One day he stops appearing in the window. The friends become concerned about his disappearance and try to find out what happened. It turns out this mother is not mentally well and had locked him in a cupboard. They manage to rescue the boy and I think he is taken away from his mother.

I read this book around 1998. It is a childrens novel and I think it was set around the time I read it.

[Emily]

Bump

[Kris]

Emily, what's the genre - e.g., mystery for kids or teens? What's the location?

I added some details and a spoiler alert to the header/topic title at the top of the page, so your book might be recognized from that description alone. Many members only read the headers.

You can update it by clicking the small "edit" link after the header. This only works on the full Desktop website - not the Mobile website or app. (On the Mobile website, there's a "Desktop version" link at the bottom of the page.)

[Emily]

Kris, the genre was general children's fiction, perhaps a coming of age story. I read it for school when I was 11 so it was intended for that age group. I don't remember anything specific about the location unfortunately. Thanks for the title edit.

[Becca]

A boy being locked in a cupboard by a mentally unwell mother sounds like Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian, but the rest doesn't match. That book is commonly read at school in the UK, from my experience.

So far, the only children's book from pre-2000 I've been able to find that has friends seeing a mysterious boy at a window is Stranger at the Window by Vivien Alcock, but it doesn't sound like it includes the cupboard thing.

Do either of those sound familiar? It could be possible you've misremembered / combined two different books, but I will keep looking for something that matches completely.

[Rainbowheart]

Marianne Dreams has a boy in a window trapped in a house, kinda, but the rest of the plot is way off.

[Emily]

Becca wrote: "A boy being locked in a cupboard by a mentally unwell mother sounds like Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian, but the rest doesn't match. That book is commonly read at school in..."

I absolutely could be misremembering details! One of the reasons I even remember it is because we had to write a short play for school that was based on the book. I could be getting the memories of the play we wrote and memories of the book mixed up.

Having said that, Stranger in the Window by Vivian Alcock looks *very* familiar to me. I want to see if I can find a detailed plot summary before I confirm but this looks promising!

[Becca]

Glad to help!

There's a digital copy of Stranger at the Window on archive.org that you can 'borrow' for an hour if you're a member (which is completely free to do) - https://archive.org/details/strangera... - in case you can't find a detailed summary. This Goodreads user review goes into quite a lot of detail if you click 'view spoiler' in the middle of it.

[Tess]

Among the Hidden Maybe? It's book one of a series, so maybe the event happens in another book? I didn't read more than this one, the first.

[Emily]

It has been such a journey trying to figure out which book this is... I really thought "Stranger at the Window" by Vivian Alcock was it because it's details sounded so familiar.

However, while looking up details of Alcock's book, I saw this book in someone's recommended reading list: "Face at the Window" by Julie Ireland.

That is the exact book cover I remember. It is so bizarre that my furious googling of various forms of "face at the window" didn't yield that book as a result!

Anyway, thanks to Becca for vicariously helping me find the book I was looking for.

[Kris]

Great. Glad you found your book, Emily. Here's the Goodreads link - Face at the Window by Julie Ireland.

[Becca]

So glad you found it! With that title I'm surprised we didn't come across it sooner.