The Tilting House

I bought this for my eleven-year-old niece. She loves mysteries and has read just about every Nancy Drew. She loved this one and gobbled it up in one sitting. It's the story of two young brothers, eleven-year-old Josh and his little brother Aaron. They move into a house with tilting floors---but it's not because the house is old. The house was built to have floors that tilt at exactly three degrees---and no one knows why. This is only the first of many strange things about the house. Little by little the house's history is revealed, along with the story of the house's original owner, an eccentric inventor named F.T. Tilton. The mystery gathers momentum as the book progresses. There are fantastical elements such as talking rats and growth powders. In fact, the book is crammed full of imaginative flourishes. Highly recommended.

Oh, how I'd have loved this book as a kid! Then again, oh how I loved it as an adult. Old houses, mysterious rooms, talking animals, boxes in the attic containing magical things. And danger lurking 'round every corner... Doesn't get much better than that. When a family consisting of parents, two sons, and a grandfather moves into a house with tilted floors - partly out of lack of funds and partly because the parents are just plain cool - their first challenge is adjusting the furniture so it won't slide all over the place. One lucky thing, the dining table left by the previous owners was custom made. And, as it turns out, the maker of the table also made the grandfather's wooden leg. Curiouser and curiouser. Very shortly strange, wonderful and not so wonderful things begin happening. The events come rapid-fire, one on the heels of the other, leaving no downtime between for very much character development. That would be a bad thing in a longer book, but in this short gem I had no problem with it. The book's swift action is well-suited to a short attention span, something kids seem to be plagued with in the age of the internet. On the other hand, it could be such a quirky, fast-paced book would encourage a reluctant reader to pick up something else to read after. Sort of the Harry Potter effect in miniature. It's definitely a good place to start when encouraging your child to read over the summer. I plan to give a copy to my own son. When I manage to pry him away from his video games. As far as the writing goes, the best developed character in the book is probably the father rat. The father of the human family and two sons meet him almost immediately, while exploring the house. How they met him is a bit gruesome, but not Stephen King gruesome. It's ick. Let's put it that way, but without blood or gore. Throughout the book the father rat aids them in getting out of various messes, things he knows more about having lived in the area much longer. Strange to think of a rat being a sage, but with everything else that happens pretty soon that's one of the more normal things in the book. Adventure after adventure. Secrets and mysterious powders that make things grow. While it does have a bit of a disjointed feel, overall I see this book having wide appeal. Definitely not literature, and not something I can see becoming a children's classic. Just a plain, fun read.