Henry H. Neff’s The Hound of Rowan is a fantasy adventure for 9 year olds about a boy who walks into a room that isn’t on the museum map.<\/p>\n
Max McDaniels is twelve. Every year on his mum’s birthday he and his dad go to the Art Institute in Chicago and look at her favourite paintings. They have kept that up even though she disappeared two years ago.<\/p>\n
On the train in, a man stares at him. One eye is green. The other is white and wet like a peeled egg, and Max can tell it isn’t blind at all. It is studying him.<\/p>\n
Later, dodging that same man in the armour gallery, Max ducks under a velvet rope into a small dim room marked UNDER REPAIR.<\/p>\n
There is one thing inside. A faded old tapestry. And it is glowing.<\/p>\n
Then a thread snaps into gold and hums like a harp string. Then another. Soon the whole thing is singing, and something that has been shut up inside Max his whole life gets loose.<\/p>\n
When he steps back out, two hours have gone. The doorway isn’t there any more. In his pocket is a letter with his name on it, congratulating him on registering that afternoon as a Potential.<\/p>\n
His dad is the best company in the book. He writes adverts for dish soap and soup wafers, and he cannot meet anybody, anywhere, without performing the whole pitch at them (his boss’s poor wife drops her handbag).<\/p>\n
That warmth matters, because the frightening bits are properly frightening. The story doesn’t rush. You get the train, the museum, the taxi and the long ride home, and all the while something is closing in.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. Max’s mother vanished two years before the story opens, so it is settled background rather than something a reader watches happen. The man hunting him is genuinely creepy and he ends up with Max’s name and address. If your child likes a shiver, that’s the appeal. If they are the sort who lies awake after one, save this for later.<\/p>\n
For everyone else it is a big, patient start to something much bigger. There’s a school waiting, and the strong feeling that Max has only found out about a tenth of what he is.<\/p>\n
The story carries straight on in the second Tapestry book, with Max back at Rowan and training with an Agent called Cooper who can climb a tree like a spider and put a knife exactly where he wants it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry H. Neff’s The Hound of Rowan is a fantasy adventure for 9 year olds about a boy who walks into a room that isn’t on the museum map. Max McDaniels is twelve. Every year on his mum’s birthday he and his dad go to the Art Institute in Chicago and look at her favourite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10699,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9455,"lr_next_read_anchor":"the second Tapestry book","lr_seo_hook":"A boy who touches an old tapestry and wakes something huge inside him."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[379],"class_list":["post-9454","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-henry-h-neff"],"yoast_title":"The Tapestry Book 1: The Hound of Rowan by Henry H. Neff | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A boy who touches an old tapestry and wakes something huge inside him. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n