The Painted Hallway

Darleen R. Golke is a high-school teacher and librarian in Winnipeg.

When research projects compel 13-year-old Jennifer Scott’s academic
parents to “go overseas,” Jennifer finds herself spending the summer
with her great-grandmother at Thistle Manor in southwestern Ontario.
Jennifer’s initial feeling of abandonment fades as she becomes
acquainted with her “Grandnan” and develops an appreciation of her
own position as a fifth-generation member of the family. All too soon,
however, Grandnan suffers a stroke, forcing her granddaughter to accept
the reality of illness and the very real possibility of death.

Jennifer investigates the three-storied mansion and discovers exquisite
murals painted on the walls of the grand front hallway. Her curiosity
piqued, she determines to conduct her own summer research project when
no one is able to tell her who painted the murals. Enlisting the
assistance of librarian Mina Dassel, Jennifer pieces together the puzzle
of the artist’s identity. Using the past-time fiction convention of a
door opening to the past, Patterson allows Jennifer glimpses into the
world of the first-generation inhabitants of Thistle Manor—glimpses
that point her to some startling and tragic discoveries about the
family’s history.

Patterson provides wonderful details about Thistle Manor, a
yellow-brick mansion that acts as a perfect setting for experiencing and
uncovering mysterious events, present and past. Jennifer emerges as an
extraordinarily adult 13-year-old in this coming-of-age story. As the
only child of academic parents, her vocabulary and systematic research
methods might be explained; however, the long-buried family secrets she
uncovers and her full comprehension of them seem more appropriate for an
older heroine. Special young readers will be rewarded for their
perseverance in following Jennifer’s investigation of Thistle
Manor’s history of human joys and sorrows. Patterson treats her
heroine’s experiences with visions of the past delicately, and
attempts to promote an appreciation of the connection between people’s
heritage and their present. “Art,” Jennifer concludes, “never
dies”; nor does the power of love.