The Dollhouse Murders book report

At the beginning of the book, 12 year old Amy was very ungrateful. She hated having to watch over her 11 year old sister, Louann, all the time. Louann is in a school for exceptional children, so she is very stubborn and doesn't listen very well. Amy always blamed Louann for never getting to go out and do anything with her friends. She hated that her mom and dad were gone a lot, which meant she was responsible for her sister most of the time. She was always getting into arguments with her mother and thought that she was making her take care of Louann on purpose so she couldn't do anything fun. By the end of the book, Amy realizes how great it is to actually have a loving family. She realizes Louann was not only her pest, but her loving sister. The sister that she could hang onto and they would be together. She realizes how hard it must be for her mom to have a daughter as Louann. She see's that her mother loves them both very much.

Theme: Always be grateful for the things you have.

Summary: Amy is very mad at her mom because she made her take her sister, Louann, with her when she went to the mall with her friend. Louann has brain-damage, so she's kind of a pain to take care of. As Amy says on page 10, "I'm sick of babysitting and losing my friends and having everybody stare when we go by. I don't want to protect her anymore. I'm never, never going to take her any place again!" Her mother could not believe she had said such a thing. Amy ran down the street and kept going for a long time. She realized she was near her Aunt Clare's house. Her aunt lived in a big old house, that her grandparents used to live in. She was soon going to go back to Chicago, though. She arrived at her aunt's house and they chatted for a while. She rarely ever got to see her aunt. They soon got to the point where they had made an agreement that Amy would stay there with her aunt for a little while, just to clear her mind a little bit. At her aunt's, she discovered a huge dollhouse in the attic. It was an exact replica of the house she was in! It was the neatest thing Amy had ever seen. Amy asked her aunt how her grandparents had been killed. Aunt Clare didn't want to talk about it. So Amy and her friend Ellen went to the library and did some research to see if they could find out what happened. They discovered that her grandparents had been murdered. They were murdered in the house that Amy was staying in, too. She found out that Aunt Clare had been the one to discover the bodies of her grandparents. Grandpa was laying across the bed, and grandma was in the parlor. On the same night her grandparents had been murdered, Aunt Clare heard that her fiance died in a car accident. One day Aunt Clare got very angry with Amy because she had found the grandmother and grandfather doll laying in the exact spots in the dollhouse as they were when Clare had found them. Amy swore she didn't do it, but her aunt didn't believe her. They got past that, and planned a birthday party for Amy at Clare's house. They talked it over, and Amy was going to have four friends over for the day, then Ellen would stay the night. Amy had been very upset because on the day of her party, Louann showed up at Clare's house and was going to stay there for a few nights because their parents had to go out of town to babysit their friends children who's husband was having surgery and wasn't doing well at all. Amy was very mad. After all of Amy's friends went home, including Ellen, Clare had found the dolls in the dollhouse in the same spot again. She was very, very upset with Amy. She told Amy she wanted to forget about all of it. Amy once again told her it wasn't her who did it. Aunt Clare explained to Amy how her grandparents got her it for her birthday, but she hated it because she thought it was too childish. She was dating a boy at the time that was a few years older than her, and grandma and grandpa did not like him at all and told her she had to stop seeing him. She didn't listen to them. He asked her to marry him, and she agree, but when she told him that her grandparents didn't like him at all, he was angry. Clare went to the movies with some friends to try to clear her mind from everything that was happening. Sh had convinced her grandparents that she hated them, and they seemed to believe it. That night when she came home from the movies, she found the bodies. Then she heard that her fiance had been killed. She thought for sure it was him that had killed them. She felt that it was her fault that they were killed. That screwed up her life. That's why she was at the house, because she lost her job and had nowhere else to go. She was alone. Amy was shocked to hear all this, and assured her aunt that it wasn't her fault. But it didn't matter, her aunt would always believe that, and it has ruined her. Her grandparents had died because of her, thinking that she hated them. After that, Amy and Louann went to Amy's room and went to bed. Amy woke up and told Louann they had to go into the attic and see if the dolls were moving or to see if they could find anything, no matter how terrified they were. Amy was convinced that the dolls (or ghosts) were trying to send her a message. They went into the attic, and the dolls were moving around in the dollhouse, by themselves! Amy and Louann were terrified while they watched the grandmother doll run into the parlor, close the door, screaming and crying, and pull books off of the shelf and watch them hit the floor. The killer, who was invisible, opened the door. The girls couldn't watch anymore. They ran down the steps screaming for their Aunt Clare. She woke up and asked them what was going on. They told her everything. They decided to go into the parlor and search through the books to see if they could find anything. Louann pulled out a book from the shelf and a note fell out. Amy read it aloud. (page 139) She read, "he killed James. He wants money. He's going to kill me, too. We've always been generous to Reuben, how could he do this?" So that was the answer. It wasn't Clare's fiance who killed her grandparents! It wasn't her fault after all! Reuben was the handyman who worked on the garden and did chores around the house. Then Amy looked at the title of the book that the note was placed in. It had to be a coincidence. Amy ran her fingers along the cover of the book that said, "A doll's house." Amy's parents returned, and Amy was very glad to see them. She explained to them how everything went fine with Louann and they were there for each other every step of the way. She didn't tell them about the dollhouse or anything, though. Amy was happy to have all of her family together.

The Dollhouse Murders

Betty Ren Wright

Genre: Mystery and Suspense

Kelsey Dodds

8/10