Emma Read’s The Housetrap is a spooky puzzle mystery for 9 year olds about four children shut inside a mansion that shouldn’t be there at all.<\/p>\n
Deliah’s best friend Claude is moving to Cornwall in two days. It should be a big goodbye. Instead he’s upstairs on the Switch with his new mate Sam, and Deliah is downstairs doing a Killer Sudoku on her own.<\/p>\n
Then Amity, Claude’s younger sister, disappears into Badwell Woods. Everyone round here is told to keep out (sinkholes, old mine tunnels and a lot of stories about kids who went in and never came back).<\/p>\n
So the three of them go after her. Past a DANGER OF DEATH sign, past some very faded missing posters, and out into a clearing where a grand old house sits with no road leading to it.<\/p>\n
Inside, it’s spotless. Champagne on ice, a grandfather clock stuck at half past seven, and a party invitation written as a riddle. Then the front door shuts behind them.<\/p>\n
Deliah finds maths comforting. Numbers add up and people don’t. So being trapped with a boy who calls her Dreary McDeery, and an old best friend who laughs along, is almost worse than the ghosts Amity swears are in the walls.<\/p>\n
Who shut that door? Deliah’s first guess is Sam, and she says so, loudly! Nobody in this group is getting on, and they’re going to have to.<\/p>\n
The puzzles are really satisfying. A trick statue that unlocks the doors. A secret room behind a photograph. A hidden door Deliah overthinks completely (Amity just pushes it). And this is a house that can rearrange its own rooms, which gives the whole thing a lovely sense of the floor shifting under you.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. It gets properly creepy in places. There’s a dark room full of smashed frames, a Ouija board and a notebook smudged with what looks like blood. At the heart of it is a little girl who went missing in 1930. Sam’s digs about girls are meant to wind you up, and they do.<\/p>\n
A reader who scares easily might want to share the first few chapters with you. One who loves a creepy house and a good riddle will probably race through it.<\/p>\n
If they’d like another bunch of kids locked in with only their brains to get them out, try Christopher Edge’s Escape Room. Ami turns up for a night at the ultimate puzzle game and finds a team of strangers waiting to play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emma Read’s The Housetrap is a spooky puzzle mystery for 9 year olds about four children shut inside a mansion that shouldn’t be there at all. Deliah’s best friend Claude is moving to Cornwall in two days. It should be a big goodbye. Instead he’s upstairs on the Switch with his new mate Sam, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12924,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7342,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Escape Room","lr_seo_hook":"A locked mansion in the woods, a riddle for a party invite and no way out."},"book_tag":[22],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[307],"class_list":["post-9127","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-mystery-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-emma-read"],"yoast_title":"The Housetrap by Emma Read | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A locked mansion in the woods, a riddle for a party invite and no way out. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n