IMWAYR: The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton

This week, I’m reading The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton. I haven’t read much, but so far, this book is really interesting. I’ve only read up to chapter 3 out of 19 chapters.  The story starts in a dream the main character, Thomas Small, is having. In his dream, he’s walking in a forest he’s been to before. While he’s walking, he’s following a trail that was supposedly made by the Tuscarora people, a Native American tribe. While he’s walking, he realizes a difference in the trees in the forest. He notices they are bigger than he remembers, but he isn’t bothered by it. He ends up bothered by the intense smell of the trees. He starts running away from a man with a white beard. When he wakes up, he’s in a car with his family. While it is his 13th birthday, he and his family are driving away from their old home in North Carolina to their new home in Ohio. Their new house in Ohio used to be a stop on the Underground Railroad which I’m sure you’ve heard of. The house was believed to be haunted by the man who owned the house before his family did, Dies Drear. Drear was an abolitionist and he gave runaway slaves food to eat, a place to stay, money and showed them kindness. ***SPOILER ALERT***, he was murdered by a gang of bounty hunters in the 1860s. The house was supposedly haunted by the ghosts of other slaves. Thomas did some research and read the report his father, who was a historian and a US Civil War history teacher, got before he and his family moved into the house.

When Thomas and his family moved into the house, he was scared and excited to see what he could find in the house. As soon as he gets there, he begins exploring. He eventually made some friends and eventually runs into what seems to be a “monster”, also known as Mr. Pluto. He sleeps in the living room to protect the house from intruders. While Mr. Pluto is asleep, someone (or something), slips into the house.

“Soundlessly the mirror closed. Whatever stood there in front of it gave back no reflection in the totally dark house.”

I’ll save the suspense for next time……