THE HOUSE ON PARCHMENT STREET

by Patricia McKillip ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 1973

This satisfying adventure of an American girl visiting relatives in a big old English house is just what young readers would order if they had the imagination to dream it up themselves. During her month-long stay on Parchment Street Carol and her cousin Bruce -- at first separately, frightened and incredulous, then together -- witness the daily reenactment of a more than 300 year-old trauma by two ghosts (one of them a young girl) whom neither fact-bound Uncle Harold nor even sympathetic, open-minded Father Malory can see. When the children uncover a walled up tunnel leading from the cellar (where the ghosts appear) to the nearby church, they are able to follow the figures to the bloody end of their Civil War drama and to stop the obsessive hauntings by burying the bones they find in the tunnel. Though the story lacks the intriguing psychological ambiguity of, say, Zilpha Snyder's ghost stories, McKillip blends history, supernatural occurrences, and firm contemporary reality with a sure sense of drama and detail that brings all three worlds to simultaneous life.

Pub Date: March 21, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION