Castle in the Attic: The Story Begins!

This week, I hope you and your family have begun to read The Castle in the Attic. What do you think of the character of William? Is he a pretty typical ten-year old boy? I was a little surprised at the method he used to try to make Mrs. Phillips change her mind about leaving - and was very happy he made the situation better by the end of Chapter 1!

Here's a picture of the (real!) town that Mrs. Phillips is from in England. Do you remember the name of the place? William used to say it every chance he got because he liked "to roll that funny name around on his tongue..."!

Mrs. Phillips' home in England: Stow-on-the-Wold
by Jim from London [CC-BY-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

See all those words in the caption? I had to put them there because it's not my photograph to post. But the photographer, Jim from London, said I could - as long as I put his name and the attribution, which is all those other words. It's sort of like copyright, only it's called Creative Commons, and the creator makes it easier for others to use and to share his work. So thanks, Jim from London!

Two mentions of food in the chapters puzzled me. In Chapter 2, William was eating ketchup on his noodles. Ketchup? If you've ever tried that, leave us a comment and let us know how it tasted! Also, Mrs. Phillips puts something called Marmite on her toast. I've never heard of that before. So I ordered some on the internet. Maybe we can try it!