The Birthday Room: Part 2

By KEVIN HENKES

And the third room, long and low roofed, had been planned as a reading room with a comfortable overstuffed chair, a skylight, and plenty of shelves to accommodate the overflow of books that seemed to multiply in stacks all over the house, starting in corners and spreading to end tables, countertops, and ottomans like some persistent growth.

Ben had watched the progress of the renovation with great interest. Seeing the exposed structure of the house fascinated him - the beams and wires, the ancient plaster and lath stripes.

The crew working on the house, he thought, wasn't unlike a surgical team performing an operation. At the height of the project, the house was a body, skin peeled back to reveal muscles, bones, veins, arteries, and organs.

Publisher: HarperCollins

Price: $12.95

Age group: 8-12 years