SuitabookBehind the bookcase
Mark Steensland
- Reading
- Read alongside the child if frightening imagery may be difficult. Pause after new discoveries to ask what seems trustworthy, and check in around the grandmother’s death or references to it, as well as after scenes involving threatening creatures.
- Themes
- Grief and change: Sarah is unhappy about spending the summer at her late grandmother’s house while her parents prepare it for sale. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Courage and fear: Sarah investigates the doorway, enters Scotopia and faces dangers and frightening events in both the other world and the house. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Trust and hidden truth: Sarah finds an unfinished letter, investigates claims her mother dismisses and wonders whom she can trust while secrets surround the house and Scotopia. The story sets scepticism, family disagreement and hidden information against Sarah’s investigation, without showing which interpretations or relationships prove reliable.
- Worth knowing
- The tone may be unsettling: the story includes dangerous creatures, locked sleeping souls, a malignant cat, stitched-shut sentinels, a partly missing face and a giant bat with a boy’s face.