The Secret of the Painted House Read online

  Logan gave a happy little skip at his sister’s side.

  Emily reached down and hugged him. “Isn’t it nice to be home?” she said.

  About the Author

  Marion Dane Bauer is the author of more than sixty books for children, including the Newbery Honor–winning On My Honor. She has also won the Kerlan Award for her collected work. Marion’s first Stepping Stone book, The Blue Ghost, was named to the Texas Bluebonnet Award 2007–2008 Master List. Marion teaches writing and is on the faculty of the Vermont College Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.

  Marion has two grown children and seven grandchildren and lives in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

  About the Illustrator

  Leonid Gore emigrated from Minsk, in the former Soviet Union, in 1990. He has since illustrated more than twenty children’s books in the United States. His artwork in such books as Lucy Dove (an IRA-CBC Children’s Choice and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year) and Sleeping Boy (a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year) has been widely praised. Critics have called his work “visually stunning,” “brilliant,” and “haunting.”

  Leonid and his wife, Nina, live with their daughter, Emily, in Oakland, New Jersey.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2007 by Marion Dane Bauer

  Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Leonid Gore

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks and A STEPPING STONE BOOK and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.steppingstonesbooks.com

  www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bauer, Marion Dane.

  The secret of the painted house / by Marion Dane Bauer ;

  illustrated by Leonid Gore.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  SUMMARY: When her family moves from Chicago to the country, nine-year-old Emily is drawn to a mysterious playhouse she finds in the woods and soon meets its sad, lonely inhabitant.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-49775-8

  [1. Playhouses—Fiction. 2. Haunted places—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 4. Moving, Household—Fiction. 5. Illinois—Fiction.] I. Gore, Leonid, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.B3262Sec 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2006024829

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