The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

I enjoyed this book even though it creeped me out quite a bit. It's creepy in the way the true Grimm's Fairy Tales are creepy.

David is a 12 year old English boy during WWII who loses his mother to a debilitating illness--cancer, I think. She'd infused him with a love of books, telling him that they were alive and he takes great solace in them especially when his father eventually remarries.

Not only does his father remarry, the new little family relocates to Rose (the stepmother)'s home outside of London. Rose tries her best to be friends with the resentful David, who rebuffs her at every turn. Then, to add insult to injury, Rose has a baby and David feels even more isolated and alienated.

It's in that spirit that strange things begin to happen. He begins to have episodes where he passes out. Books "speak" to him. He begins to see a crooked man. After a particularly unpleasantly argument with Rose and his father, he runs out to the garden and a portal opens up into another world. He thinks he hears his mother calling to him and he feels compelled to go to her.

David enters an alternate world that is more nightmare than dream. There are all manners of evil creatures and weird beasts inhabiting the place as well as a few good guys sprinkled here and there. Worst of all is the crooked man, who has some really foul and evil plan for David.

So what happens to David? Read the book and find out! It's a great story!