The Plot In Five Sentences:  Henry is spending the summer with his Aunt Dotty, Uncle Frank and their 3 daughters on their farm in Kansas.  His stay takes a strange turn when he notices plaster peeling off the walls of his attic bedroom one night.  Strange knobs and doors begin to appear and Henry eventually discovers that his walls are filled with cupboards.  Along with his cousin Henrietta, he comes to realize that these are no ordinary cupboards, but rather possess a magic that proves to be as dangerous as it is enchanting.

My Take:  I found the pace of ‘100 Cupboards’ to be deliberate.  Wilson grounds us in the reality of small town Kansas life for the first third of the novel, making the big reveal of the cupboards and the attendant magic they possess all the more powerful.  By the end of the book, when the presence of a great evil appears, I was thoroughly engaged and emotionally invested in the story and characters.  I recommend this novel for any child who enjoys the fantasy genre and will not be put off by a slow start.

One Interesting Note About the Author:    According to his online bio, when he was in preschool, N.D. Wilson dug up a dead cat out of his sandbox.