The Dollhouse: A Ghost Story
When Alice’s father once again says he cannot be with the family because of work, Alice’s mother says she is leaving him. She accepts a live-in nursing job to care for an elderly woman in a creepy old house, where 12-year-old Alice can live too. While journeying to their new home, the train stops abruptly, and Alice suffers a concussion. The old house is both enormous and creepy. Lily, the housekeeper’s daughter who is a teenager but acts like a young child, becomes a friend and confidant for Alice. One night, Alice meets Fizz, the ghost of a girl who lived in the house in the 1920s. When Alice discovers a dollhouse that is a near-perfect reconstruction of the old house, and that when she makes changes in the dollhouse, the same changes happen in the real house, she can’t decide if she is dreaming, if her imagination is causing real things to happen, or if this is all because of her head injury. Ghostly Fizz believes that Alice is the ghost—could it be true? Did Alice die on the train? Or are she and Fizz in some kind of weird, dollhouse dreamworld?
This is an excellent, spooky ghost story for children. Alice’s confusion is believable, the stress of having parents in a near-divorce situation realistic, and the freaky dollhouse perfectly creepy. Although a scary story, the only violence stems from two train accidents, and the ghosts, while not always friendly, are not wholly malevolent. Great fun! For children ages 9-12.
