She befriends Morton, a boy-turned-painting who’s trapped in Elsewhere and wants to go home to his parents. Olive finds out early on that any human who stays in Elsewhere too long will turn to paint. Some of the people are paintings that come to life, others are humans trapped there by Aldous McMartin, the (maybe) dead artist who built Olive’s house and has powers he uses in evil ways. Elsewhere looks pretty and placid sometimes, but the landscape can turn menacing without warning. In “The Shadows,” Olive learns that the paintings in her family’s house hide the world of Elsewhere, which she can jump into by using special old spectacles and hanging onto one of the cat’s tails. That’s a rare feat for a debut book by a previously unknown author. Olive was introduced in 2010 in the first Elsewhere book, “The Shadows,” which hit the New York Times bestseller list. This week West began promotions for “Still Life,” the fifth and final book in the series for middle-grade readers that is praised by critics for blending humor, mystery and magic. Readers of West’s bestselling The Books of Elsewhere series might recognize that house because protagonist Olive Dunwoody lives in a similar residence with her loving but distracted parents (inspired by that River Falls inventor) and three immortal, talking cats who guard the house and the family. I loved the contrast between a scientific, modern person in that old house.” The man who owned or rented the house after Pennington was an inventor, so wind-powered machines, rusty metal contraptions, were scattered over the lawn, moving erratically when the wind blew. Pennington Physician and Surgeon.’ The thought that people went to that house in the distant past to have surgery was terrifying. “There was a rusty sign in front that said ‘Dr. “The paint was peeling, the porch was sagging, the windows were dark and the yard was shady and overgrown,” West recalled in a phone conversation from her home in Red Wing. When 11-year-old Jacqueline Cobian West was in middle school in River Falls, Wis., she was intrigued by a big, rundown old house her school bus passed every day.
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