House of Secrets: A New York Times Bestselling Fantasy Adventure Series for Kids (Ages 8-12)

I enjoyed this story because the characters and plot was new, unique and refreshing Plus, it had constant action. I heard about it from watching the Judge Mathis' show. I'm so glad I read it. Wonderful.

This was a thrilling adventure! I loved the growth that all three main characters, Cordelia, Brendan, and Eleanor experience throughout the novel. The illustrations were incredible and really added something to the story. The imagery is colorful and vivid, the scenes that Columbus and Vizzini set seem to come to life on their own. I can't wait to see what else the duo has in store for the Walker family.

Chris Columbus writes a children's book. This is enough to capture the interest of any modern film fan and any child of the eighties who grew up watching the classic movies such as The Goonies and Gremlins. Columbus is an excellent film maker but can he write in the novel format. With the help of Ned Vizzini Columbus wrote this novel which he has said is a thematic sequel to The Goonies. The plot revolves around three children. Cordelia, Eleanor and Brendan all typical 2K13 era children. Their father looses his job and the family is forced to move into a old mansion that was owned by Denver Kristoff, a pulp fiction writer from the early 20th Century. After an encounter with a creepy neighbor and an angel statue that gave me the creeps they are sent into the world of the Kristoff novels and must use their wits to get out of it. I really thought that this novel was good. The characters were vivid and there was a lot of action, chapters left you wanting to know what happens next. Columbus had sent the manuscript to Rowling who gave advice about developing the characters and slowing the speed slightly. The advice worked because the novel does not move too fast and you feel sympathy for each characters different situation when dealing with their tests and tribulations as characters in this novel. I think the novel was trying to be a specific length, and toward the end it did seem to almost add on a few more action scenes so that it would reach the proper page length. I give this book four stars because I really enjoyed it and I am anxious to read book 2.

Fabulous adventures ....a little sister with dyslexia and a love for horses that goes beyond sense,a middle brother who loves his personal game device so much he ignores the world and his family, and the big sister who reads anything that's not nailed down, add parents with a mysterious "incident" that has caused financial problems and stir in a new ( old furnished with antiques ) house and a crazy mean neighbor .....oh and lots of magic and enjoy!!!!!

There's a lot to like and not to like about "House of Secrets." The novel has well-developed characters, interesting settings and a story that is both macabre and mysterious. The tale begins with the Walker family on its way to an old cliff house in San Francisco, which is being sold at a deep discount the family desperately needs due to the father's unemployment situation. Well, no surprise, they wind up moving in and, almost immediately, odd things start happening and the plot thickens. But I won't ruin the story. I'll just say that the characters a fleshed out clearly with their own specific personalities. The author's write prose that moves along briskly. That's the good. Here's the bad. First, pretty violent for a younger crowd that's less than thirteen, I'd say. Two characters get stabbed, one in the chest, one in the back. Another character gets an arrow in his eye, then pulls out the arrow with his eye attached to it. Another character is known for vivisecting humans. Second, the amount of brands and names dropped into the story is excessive. Anderson Cooper, PSP, Hot Topic, "Game of Thrones." More distracting than anything. Third, the story winds up being, for the most part, deus ex machina. Toward the end of the book, the Walker boy, Brendan, encounters a girl named Celene who indicates that he is rumored to be their savior. Well, that never actually happens and their isn't one, not two, but three deus ex machina contrivances at the end of the story. Basically, the characters have little control over their own fates at the end of the story, being largely saved by god-like and magical forces in several situations. While I was never bored by the story, I was never blown away by it either.

My husband wanted to give this book to our 10 year old nephew, who is in the 5th grade, for Christmas. (My husband was friends with Ned.) Our nephew loved it! He hardly touched his other presents until he finished reading this book, and he would stay up until midnight reading. When he was not reading the book, he talked about it - where he was in the story or what he had just read. My husband had read the book beforehand, and so they had good conversations about the book. My sister and brother-in-law were amazed with my nephew's eagerness to read this book. My nephew finished reading this book right before the end of winter break. After the winter break, my nephew wrote a book report about it. I pre-ordered "House of Secrets: Battle of the Beasts" to give to our nephew for his birthday.

Having been a fan of Ned Vizzini for a long time, I think this is one of his better books. It's more mainstream than The Other Normals, and the authors manage to cram a LOT of different types of characters into this book. It's a fast, fun read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.

I dove into this book like so many others with the hope that "this will be the one." I'm going through a bit of a rut with my reading material lately, and I'm desperately trying to find that book that will zing up my reading life. The premises for this book really grabbed my attention, so I dove in. I won't say that I was disappointed, but I will say that I found the book very lacking. It seems that so many books are vying for either ultra-action or shock the pants off your readers, and this book attempted to do both. I did enjoy the action in the book, they were on a break-neck pace throughout the entire book. What i find disturbing is that this is yet another book that is dumbed down. Just because you are writing to a YA audience does not mean you have to get into pop culture to portray your meanings. Kids need some depth, some meat to the stories and characters they can believe in and root for. Not just because they have no other options in the book, but because they actually care about the outcome. The characters in this book are so flat and so cliche that it literally hurt to read some of the passages. We have three siblings at different ages that we couldn't tell apart. Cordelia was the one I was really rooting for to show that she would lead her family through this major crisis that she experienced, but when it came down to it, she fails miserably. She gets a talking down from our pilot (Will), and then, she throws a hissy fit and that's her way of showing her maturity? Somehow, I'm not thinking so. Brendan - typical boy, into games and weapons - which is fine, really, but his personality couldn't be more all over the place. He was a tough guy, he was a wimp, he was sassy, he was too scared to do anything. He would talk back, then be cowered by a look. It just didn't make any sense. I didn't see the point of making Elle dyslexic in the book. I'm glad the authors thought to bring some light into a very real problem with kids and adults alike, but how int he world did it do anything for the story? She didn't use it for good - she did overcome it in order to save them all, but it was really glossed over. If we are going to show that she is overcoming something that strong a problem in her life (and dyslexia is a hard thing to live with), why gloss over it so quickly? Just seems gimmicky to me. That being said, none of them really had their own voice. You couldn't tell one from another - and if you happen to slip past a dialogue tag or two, you should really be able to have at least an idea on who is talking. The 8-yr-old spoke more maturely than the 15-year-old in many cases, but then Elle (the 8-yr-old) would revert right back into 2nd grade mode. Where is the depth of characters these days? And may I throw in a lack of a deep plot? What happened to the books that challenged the minds of the children? This book seemed like it was so worried about being popular that it forget what generally makes a book popular to begin with... giving the kids something they can sink their teeth into. Ones that challenge them, gives them things to search for, discover, figure out. This book never delivered in any of those. It threw in some great trivia for the kids (what I did really like), but forgot that if we don't challenge the kids, we are failing them. Just because you wait until later to reveal the plot, doesn't mean you did a great job of getting anything the kids could sink their teeth into. So while there were a lot of good things that really could have happened, they didn't. Which I found to be a real shame. This book had the potential to deliver a big punch to especially boy readers, but you are giving them nothing more than what most of the 30-minute cartoons are doing these days. Action sequence after action sequence, throw in a overly done quip, action, quip - and then cut scene.