Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the back story of the twins, Jack and Jill, and the dark world they wandered through.
It takes place before the events of the first book in the series, Every Heart A Doorway.
The reader learns why the twins are so different and how their strange and disturbing other world opened its door to them in the first place.
The majority of the problem was Jack and Jill’s parents. They had children for reasons other than love.
The father wanted to children to move up in his career. The mother wanted to improve her status with her group of female friends: “A person may look at someone else’s child and see only the surface, the shiny shoes or the perfect curls. They do not see the tears and the tantrums, the late nights, the sleepless hours, the worry. They do not even see the love, not really.” pg 13.
So, instead of loving Jack and Jill for themselves, their parents instead seek to mold them into a perfect of ideal of what they thought their children should be.
The one bright spot in the twin’s childhood is their grandmother, Louise Wolcott. Chester and Serena, Jack and Jill’s parents, call her in desperation after the birth of the children because they have no idea what they’re doing or how to balance their careers while raising children.
Louise steps in without complaint. She is quite easily my favorite character in the book: “There’s nothing tiring about caring for children you love like your own,” said Louise… pg 34.
Despite Grandmother Louise’s best efforts, Jack and Jill end up fairly emotionally stunted from their parents’ dysfunction. The twin’s discovery of another world leads to some hard lessons about love, belonging and consequences.
“The Moors were beautiful in their own way, and if their beauty was the quiet sort that required time and introspection to be seen, well, there was nothing wrong with that. The best beauty was the sort that took some seeking.” pg 171.
I enjoyed this story. But, I think it should have been combined with Every Heart A Doorway.
I felt like so much of the plot of this book was given away in the first, by what happens. It would have been more enjoyable to learn about Jack and Jill’s Moors in flashbacks rather than a separate story.
That being said, it is a good enough young adult tale for what it is. The fairy tale quality to it is undeniable.
Recommended for readers who like a dark undercurrent of emotion, coming-of-age and self knowledge in their fairy tales. If you liked this book, you may also enjoy A Monster Calls.
One may be better served reading this book before Every Heart A Doorway. I think, if I had read this first, I may have enjoyed it more.
Thanks for reading!
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What if children actually fell into other worlds, like Alice in Wonderland or the Pevensies into Narnia, far more often than anyone realized? What if those worlds were superior in every way to the normal, mundane world- not in that they were in heaven, but the child felt finally at home?
Rue’s grandfather put his nefarious plan to merge the faerie world with the normal one in motion at the end of the last book. Now, everyone in Rue’s town is going bonkers. Faeries are roaming the streets, eating and manipulating humans. The more organized groups of people are fighting back. It’s a mess.
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