Something Upstairs (Avon Camelot Books) - Softcover

Avi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380790866 ISBN 13: 9780380790869

Publisher: Camelot, 1997

Synopsis

SOMETHING UPSTAIRS

The house is very, very old-built in 1789. In the kitchen there's a door that opens to a narrow flight of stairs that corkscrew up to a tiny bedroom. If you're curious, you may want to find this place and sleep there some night-even if you know that strange noises may awaken you. But that's not all. In the dark of night, you'll see a white glow, almost shiny, and two hands will rise from a dark stain on the floor...followed by two arms...a head...then a neck. The humanlike shape, radiating a soft, pale, pulsing light, will reach out to you...beckoning. DO NOT FOLLOW...or you may be trapped forever in the unknown horror of this haunted room!

 

SOMETHING UPSTAIRS

The house is very, very old-built in 1789. In the kitchen there's a door that opens to a narrow flight of stairs that corkscrew up to a tiny bedroom. If you're curious, you may want to find this place and sleep there some night-even if you know that strange noises may awaken you. But that's not all. In the dark of night, you'll see a white glow, almost shiny, and two hands will rise from a dark stain on the floor...followed by two arms...a head...then a neck. The humanlike shape, radiating a soft, pale, pulsing light, will reach out to you...beckoning. DO NOT FOLLOW...or you may be trapped forever in the unknown horror of this haunted room!

About this title

About the Author

Avi is the author of the Newbery Medal-winning Crispin: The Cross of Lead and the Newbery Honor Books Nothing But the Truth and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. He also writes the beloved Poppy stories, an animal adventure series that includes Ragweed; Poppy, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; Poppy and Rye; Ereth's Birthday; Poppy's Return; and Poppy and Ereth. His many other critically acclaimed books include Don't You Know There's a War On?, the hilarious animal fantasy The Mayor of Central Park, and the Victorian ghost story The Seer of Shadows. Avi lives in Denver, Colorado.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-7 A ghost story of redeeming social value: when 12-year-old Kenny Huldorf moves with his family to Providence, Rhode Island, he finds himself embroiled in the century-old murder of a teenage slave named Caleb. Not only is Kenny haunted by the injustice of the murder, but also by the ghost of Caleb himself, who summons Kenny back in time to the early 19th Century, where the boy must solve Caleb's murder to return to his own century. How Kenny does this is the stuff of a somber and ambiguous conclusion upon which Avi intrudes himself as a character as he has earlier done at the book's beginning. Why Avi has chosen to do this is debatableperhaps to reinforce the reality of the social issue, slavery, which drives the narrative. In any event, as a literary device it compromises an otherwise carefully constructed tale, just as the too obvious employment of Caleb as both character and symbol tends to compromise his viability as a character. Nevertheless Something Upstairs is an intelligent and well-intentioned effort. It can provoke discussion of the issues articulated above as well as how, finally, violence visits the lives of both Caleb and Kenny and how Kenny, through choice and circumstance, may have become a slave himself. Michael Cart, Beverly Hills Public Library
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Camelot
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0380790866
• ISBN 13: 9780380790869
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 128