Information
Goodreads: The Secret of Splint Hall
Series: None
Age Category: Middle Grade
Source: Library
Published: 2022
Summary
Isobel and Flora's mom says the War is over, but it doesn't feel like it. With their home destroyed in the bombing and their father killed, the sisters must travel with their mom to live with their aunt--and her terrifying husband Mr. Godfrey--in their ancestral home of Splint Hall. But it doesn't feel like home at all. Mr. Godfrey does not like children, the locals harbor resentment against the residents of the Hall, and something weird is happening in the area. Mysterious packages arrive in the dead of night, blue sparks rise up from the ground, and former servants whisper furtive warnings. Isobel and Flora will have to uncover their family's secrets before everything unravels.
Review
The Secret of Splint Hall has the feel of a classic children's fantasy, one that will resonate deep within any reader who has followed the adventures of the Pevensies or longed to find magic lurking just around the next bend, just behind a closed closet door. It has that power--that trick of making a reader believe anything is possible and that dragons might just exist. It is the type of book that a reader might just end up chasing forever, always hoping to find a story that feels just as magical.
It begins simply enough, but oh so powerfully. The War (WWII) is over, Isobel's mom says--but Isobel knows it is not true. Her father is killed and she, her sister, and her mom have to move from their bombed out house to the family estate now owned by her aunt. In just a few deft sentences, Katie Cotton has signaled that this book will be about grief just as much as it is about wonder. This book will acknowledge that the pain and the trauma carry on, even everyone says they shouldn't.
That emotional power is imbued in every part of the book, as Cotton introduces a range of characters, each one struggling with their own burdens. Mr. Godfrey, their uncle, is cold and angry--perhaps because of the first war. Perhaps because life did not turn out how he expected. Their aunt is clearly suppressed, but too fearful to break free from her domineering husband. Flora is a typically annoying older sister, one who cannot bear to admit when she is wrong. And the people surrounding Splint Hall are angry. Angry at the way Mr. Godfrey takes everything and leaves them nothing. All the characters have been marked in some way by grief and trouble. How they respond is what sets them apart--and sets the story in motion.
That story might not be particularly surprising to the savvy reader. Though Isobel and Flora struggle to discover the secret of Splint Hall, Cotton drops so many clues it really seems baffling the two cannot figure it out--unless one considers that, in their world and from their perspective, fantasies do not come true. But the story does not rely on surprise or suspense for its power. It relies on its characters, and they make it interesting even when some might suppose the plot to be progressing rather slowly. This isn't really about the secret, after all. It's about coming to terms with grief, learning to embrace wonder again, and moving on.
The Secret of Splint Hall is just the type of book that made me fall in love with reading as a child, and it is still the type of book that makes me look again at the world in surprise and wonder. Good stories, good fantasies do that. I hope we see many more such stories from Katie Cotton.
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