The afternoon of the day before her fourteenth birthday, Beatriz comes home from school to find her parents missing without a trace. After a brief, futile search, she is shipped off from her home in Des Moines to her uncle"s New York apartment, where she finds a portal to a peculiar magical land, and the starting point of an even more peculiar journey. Beatriz forms unlikely friendships with Death, a family of people with wings, assorted innkeepers, and two nameless orphans. After hair-raising encounters with a malevolent witch and her unpleasant assistants, Beatriz discovers that she has been much closer to home--and to her parents--than she initially believed. With writing rich in wordplay, literary allusions, and deadpan humor, Gordon Smith"s imaginative novel introduces an original fantasy world and its resourceful visitor. Perfect for readers who love stranger-in-a-strange-land classics like The Phantom Tollbooth and Alice in Wonderland, this enchanting story is certain to earn a new place of favor on their shelves.

"This newfangled mixture of some fantasy standards marks Smith's fantastical yet somewhat derivative debut. Fourteen-year-old Beatriz finds her parents missing when she gets home from school. Days later, she goes to stay with her Uncle M in New York City until the police can suss out her parents' whereabouts. Similar to what transpires in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the heroine stumbles upon a portal into a magical world while on the 19th floor of her uncle's apartment building. There she embarks on a quest to find her parents. During her travels, she conjures a few spells from a book of sorcery, gets trapped in what feels like a cross between a perpetual dinner party in the woods and a bed "n" breakfast (where the guests can never leave), and bumps into a handful of kooky characters (an ill-tempered witch with a hankering for tacky clothing, an overly sarcastic and surprisingly helpful Death, and two children who bear a striking resemblance to her lost parents). While this may be a somewhat intriguing adventure tale, readers might not get past the feeling that they've seen it all before. The ending that suggests the events may have been just a dream will therefore come as no surprise. Ages 10-14." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"This debut charms."

'Gordon Smith lives in San Francisco. THE FOREST IN THE HALLWAY, his first book, began as a story told to his daughter, now in college, during their daily commute to her middle school.'