Kids into books: House of Huxtable

Author: Joy Lowe

Illustrator: Brent Putze

Publisher: Mallinson Rendel, $15.95

Age group: 8-11 years


The house huddled bleakly behind the macrocarpas. Once, there had been a view of the main road across the paddocks. The house could watch the traffic scurrying to and from the town.

Once, it had been able to see the lane at the front gate where the farmer had walked his cows to the milking shed. Once, it had had a family. But that had been a long time ago.

Now the trees and shrubs grew wild. What was once a lawn now reached almost to the window-sills. Nobody had visited for a long time. Not even the boys who had smashed the front windows came around any more.

The house chuckled grimly to itself. It had fixed those larrikins. It still remembered their white faces and terrified howls as they ran away.

The house missed the old lady. The people who had taken her away had said she was going into a home.