The Humming Room

Ellen POTTER

182 pages

Published in February 2012 by Feiwel & Friends

This book counts for the following challenges:

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

Another garden? yes! I guess this is my trilogy period. After my unforgettable experience at reading The Forgotten Garden, I went to the root and read The Secret Garden, only to discover a few days later that another modern version had just been released: The Humming Room!

If The Forgotten garden was an adaptation of the classic for adults, this one is for children. It is nevertheless very well written. I had much fun tracking how this author took up the theme of the bird for instance: so instead of a robin, here you have a great blue heron! It fits perfectly with the theme of the island, and the wild character of one of the young heroes.

I liked very much how the character of the 3 children is developed. All 3 of them are special at a level or another, but at the contact of nature and each other, they grow and learn to love life. There are also lots of other funny details or adaptations along, and I will let you find them out.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Hiding is Roo Fanshaw’s special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment’s notice. When her parents are murdered, it’s her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life.
As it turns out, Roo, much to her surprise, has a wealthy if eccentric uncle, who has agreed to take her into his home on Cough Rock Island. Once a tuberculosis sanitarium for children of the rich, the strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets. Roo doesn’t believe in ghosts or fairy stories, but what are those eerie noises she keeps hearing? And who is that strange wild boy who lives on the river? People are lying to her, and Roo becomes determined to find the truth.
Despite the best efforts of her uncle’s assistants, Roo discovers the house’s hidden room–a garden with a tragic secret.
Inspired by The Secret Garden, this tale full of unusual characters and mysterious secrets is a story that only Ellen Potter could write

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ellen Potter (born 1973) is an American author of both children’s and adult’s books (as Ellen Toby-Potter). She grew up in Upper West Side, New York and studied creative writing at Binghamton University and now lives in Candor in upstate New York. She has been a contributor to Cimarron Review, Epoch, The Hudson Review, and Seventeen. Her novel Olivia Kidney was winner of the Child Magazine Best Book award and was a Best Book of the Year selection for 8-12 year-olds by Parenting magazine.

Macmillan offers another biographical note and picture.

She has a website, and you can follow her on Twitter.

REVIEWS BY OTHERS

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