House Inside Out

by Penelope Lively

Book Overview

Relates the adventures of a variety of creatures--mice, spiders, pill bugs--that live, seen and unseen, in the nooks and crannies of an ordinary house. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525443320
• ISBN13: 9780525443322
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Length: 127 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

wonderful, funny book for children or adults

I'm a huge fan of Penelope Lively. This is a charming, convincing little gem conveying life among the animal denizens of one average British house in an average British town. The protagonists include a mutt dog, a mouse, an inspiring pillbug named Nate. A sly cat spurs the dog on to dig up his owner's rosebushes. . . Nate's pal the spider fights with his neighbor and courts the female spider a few feet away. . . The mouse's wife rebels and lets him know she wants a newer, nicer apartment for the new babies. . . Underneath or overhead, the Dixons do their homework, feed the baby, wash the dishes, enjoy a football match on the telly. This one is worth hunting down. What a shame it's out of print.

Finding Extraordinary Wonders in an Ordinary House

At 54 Pavillion Road, home of the Dixon family, great adventurers lie underfoot and hidden in the walls. The deftly-drawn characters of Willy the earnest but short-sighted terrier, Nat the intrepid Pill Bug, his friend the spider, and Sam the show-off mouse and his long-suffering wife, Doris, their all-too human foibles and mishaps made me and my ten year old laugh out loud. Each chapter tells a different, but beguiling tale about one of the inhabitants of the inside-out house; major dramas of which the Dixons remain blithely unaware. Ostensibly a child's book, but one which relies refreshingly on everyday life for its subject and teaches no greater moral than, aren't we all silly, it makes for delightful inter-generational reading.