| The Haunted House of Puzzles | |
 | |
| Author | Christina Chiu |
| Publication date | 1995 |
| Published by | Bantam Books |
| ISBN | 978-0553483024 |
| Publication Order | |
| Preceded by Night of the Living Cavemen |
Followed by A Crime of Two Cities |
The Haunted House of Puzzles is a title in the Ghostwriter book series, featuring Jamal, Lenni, Alex, Gaby, Tina, Hector, and Casey. It's a puzzle activity book that also has a few spooky facts with answers offered at the end.
Synopsis[]
(From inside front cover)
A Horrifying House!
The Ghostwriter team is wonderfully terrified! While they were taking Casey trick-or-treating, they stumbled into a haunted house. Now they must solve their way out of the spooky mansion. Join their fearfully fun trip, from the front hall to the dusty library to the attic to a really grave yard. The team is counting on their friend Ghostwriter and you to help them figure out these brainteasers- or they'll never get out!
Summary[]
Trapped in a Haunted House[]
On a dark Halloween night, the Ghostwriter team takes Casey trick-or-treating. The wind starts howling and the moon moves out of sight behind a cloud and the team finds themselves walking up a long, winding road they've never seen before to an old, run-down mansion. Gaby and Hector want to leave but Casey plunges ahead when she sees a sign saying, "Tricks, No Treats! Enter..."
Casey loves a good trick, so how can she resist? The rest of the team unhappily follows. Jamal then suddenly sees a message from Ghostwriter on the cobwebs-covered walls. He shows the team the rest of the words on the sign that they missed: "Enter...At Your Own Risk!"
Everyone rushes to the front door to leave but the wind slams the door shut before they can. Jamal tries to open the door but finds it locked! The team has no choice but to brave the house and puzzle their way out. Ghostwriter also adds a note for the reader to look out for a black cat's paw prints throughout the book, as they will help provide the team's fate at the end of the book.
Chapter 1: Enter at Your Own Risk...[]
Alex hears footsteps behind him as the team heads toward the first room in the house. At first Alex thinks it's Gaby, but then realizes Gaby and the rest of the team are ahead of him! The reader is asked to complete a word search with the left over letters spelling out what Alex fears. Then, in the library, Gaby finds a thick, dusty book with an old map of the house inside. The reader must complete a maze to help the team figure out where to go next.
Chapter 2: Bats in the Attic[]
Alex and Hector lead the team up dark, creaky stairs to the attic where they encounter bats. The reader is informed of the first spooky fact by Ghostwriter, which is that Bram Stoker based his main character in "Dracula" on a real person, cruel Prince Vlad Tepes, who ruled in what's now Romania.
The team then finds riddles on the walls as they walk up the attic stairs, which must be solved by deciphering the code of replacing letters with scary symbols. Vanessa the Vampire is in the attic and needs the reader's help to identify the real vampire in the pictures presented. Then there is a puzzle presented where the reader is challenged to count the number of times the word "bat" appears. (Casey counted twenty-one.)
The team then encounters a puzzle where words must be filled in to solve clues. Ghostwriter realizes they all have the letters "B-A-T" in the answers. Completing the puzzle will also answer a riddle. Before leaving the attic, the team must make their way through a flurry of bats. The reader must help the team by crossing out repeating letters in a puzzle to reveal the answer to a riddle.
Chapter 3: The "Living" Room[]
The team escapes the attic and goes to the living room in search of an exit. Instead they find lots of ghoulish ghosts and goblins. Ghostwriter presents another spooky fact by reminding the reader that he communicates with the team by moving words and letters.
However, a poltergeist haunts houses by moving furniture around, making strange noises and slamming doors. Suddenly, a swirl of letters flies off Hector's notebook into the air as Ghostwriter forms the word "BOO!" Then there is a puzzle to solve using the letters "B-O-O", which will answer a riddle when solved.
Next, a ghost named Wayne desires a new outfit and the reader must choose an outfit for him that fits all the clues. Gaby takes a close look around the living room and then does a double take as things look different. The reader is then challenged to find the differences in two living room scenes. Tina then finds a few riddles left by a ghost in a code where words must be flipped backwards, scrambled and stripped of a letter.
Jamal then presents a list of words he used to describe the living room in the form of a word search that also answers a riddle. Before the team leaves the living room, Tina and Hector find a mysterious painting of five ghosts where one is a fake. The reader must help them fill in a jigsaw puzzle with letters that not in the word "ghost" in order to reveal the fake.
Chapter 4: Buried in the Basement[]
On the way out of the living room, the team falls through a trapdoor down a short tunnel and into a dark, damp basement. They find that this is where the house's mummies and party-loving monsters hang out. Ghostwriter offers a third spooky fact, explaining that the oldest mummy is from 2600 B.C. and baking soda was one important ingredient used to preserve mummies- the same ingredient also used to bake cakes!
The reader must then help the team through a maze to a mummy, which will also reveal the answer to a riddle. Lenni and Alex then discover a group of mummies in the basement corner all with headphones on, jamming to music. The reader is then presented with a jigsaw puzzle where letters in the word "mummy" must be filled in so that the type of music the mummies are listening to cam be revealed.
Next, John and Jack, twin monsters, are encountered and the reader must list words that describe how they are still different, the completion of which will answer a riddle. Hector and Casey then turn a corner in the basement and are astonished to find a monster party in progress. They look at each other in amazement and then back to the party only to find that it's changed.
The reader must then help them find six differences between two party scenes. Ghostwriter then finds a skull with letters written on it. The reader is then asked to help Jamal and Ghostwriter find the only path that goes through the letters that spell "skull", the completion of which will reveal the answer to a riddle.
Chapter 5: Kitchen Spells[]
A strange but inviting smell lures the team to the kitchen. They find huge black pots boiling away on top of an old iron stove. Jamal wonders who's cooking this stuff and what it is, when the team soon realizes that it's witches who are brewing up tricky puzzles. Ghostwriter then offers another spooky fact that says that though witches may be thought of as wicked, the word actually comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "wicca", which means "wise one" or "magician".
Then there is a puzzle based on a witch's pointy hat, where words must be filled in from top to bottom and Alex gets the reader started on it. Lenni then comes across a recipe hanging on a rusty refrigerator, which is written in code. The reader is asked to help Lenni solve it in order to answer a riddle.
Then the team must spoon out letters in a pot of witch's stew to solve a riddle. The team finds that the kitchen has no windows and the only door is blocked now but then the team finds a mysterious cabinet. The reader must help them through a maze to it, which will also unlock the answer to another riddle.
The team steps through the mysterious cabinet, seeing a sign saying "One Last Laugh", as they end up at the bottom of some stairs. The team must decode the answers to riddles encoded by symbols before the witches will let them take the stairs. The team then takes a long spiral staircase that leads to a chimney and the roof outside. They climb up the chimney and then down a tree into the backyard.
They've finally escaped the haunted house but they are now in a graveyard filled with tombstones. The words on the tombstones are all in a rebus code, the first one of which Tina solves. Then something strange happens because it looks as if the backyard is moving! The team looks closer and realizes the ground is covered with wiggling worms. The reader must then complete a word search based on worms, the first word of which the team has already found. The completion of this also yields the answer to a riddle.
The team then moves quickly through the backyard to a gate that's open. Where will the Ghostwriter team go now that they can get away from the haunted house? The reader is left with one final challenge to solve that can be solved by utilizing all the letters in paw prints throughout the book to form the answer.
Notes[]
- This book is one of two titles in the series to have the phrase "haunted house" in it, with the other being Hector's Haunted House.
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