The Hotel Under the Sand

A young girl finds herself alone in the Dunes after a storm has taken away everything she ever knew. She finds a hotel buried under the sand and friends in new forms. It is, in essence, a book for children about learning how to live in a mysterious, difficult world, but the narrative voice is never didactic or twee. It is warm and generous and wise. A smart, imaginative book about the nature of ghosts, time, and loss and a delightful read for all ages.

Sometimes storms come up and they destroy the lives we've known. If we're lucky, they wash us up onto a good sandy beach on an island where we can find food, shelter, water, and some new people to befriend. If we're really lucky, they will reveal a magnificent hotel that has a library and a theater and a ballroom and a well-stocked larder overseen by a talented cook. Emma was really lucky.It is possible to enjoy this story on a straightforward literal level. It is an adventure story with pirates and ghosts and a marvelous treasure hunt. It is also possible to enjoy this story on a metaphorical level, along side such recent favorites of mine as Nation andThe Lost Conspiracy. Unlike the Narnia books, all these children discover salvation show more within themselves, through what they do, rather than embodied in some external force. For older, perhaps more cynical or at least, more sarcastic readers, add Beauty Queens to the mix. Collectively these are the anti-Lord of the Flies.Marvelous. I can't recommend it enough. Go read it right now. And then read those others, if you haven't already. At any rate, keep them in mind for when you need some Utopian reading that isn't stupid.One last note: fans of The Invention of Hugo Cabret will appreciate the shout-out to the work of Méliès.

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Kage Baker is one of my favourite authors, whether she's writing sf (as in her Company stories) or fantasy (House of the Stag). In The Hotel Under the Sand, she tries her hand at children's fantasy, and proves equally adept at that format too. The book begins with young Emma being battered by a storm that takes her away from everything and everybody that she knows, casting her up on a landscape covered in sand dunes. Being brave, clever and resourceful, she manages to create a little home for herself, and she's not even phased when a ghostly Bell Captain named Winston shows up. Together, they weather another storm, but this storm is different: it uncovers the long-buried Grand Wenlocke, a luxorious hotel that was built a century ago but show more never occupied because the Storm of the Equinox intervened before guests could arrive. Emma and Winston resolve to bring the hotel back to its former glory, with the aid of the Cook (who remained with the hotel when it was buried in sand) and the piratical seadog, Captain Doubloon....Did I mention that the hotel had been built by a magician who created a means to suspend Time throughout the hotel, so that however short the vacation was, the guests all stayed as long as they liked? A lively and rollicking tale, particularly suited to 9 to 12 year olds, but recommended at any age! show less

I opened it and the first thing I saw was this --
Wow! I read The Hotel Under the Sand with delight and joy. It's wonderful, wacky and spooky and serious and FUN. It also strikes me as utterly original (which is quite rare). In fact -- although this is something one should always say with some caution -- it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be a classic and went on down the ages along with Alice and Oz and the very few others that have become immortal.
-- Diana Wynne Jones, author of Howl's Moving Castle
What could possibly make me more excited about this book? NOTHING.

So, did it live up to DWJ's excessive praise? Short answer, yes. It was possibly one of the sweetest, funnest, most original chapter books I've ever read. There's one show more of the best ghosts I've ever read about, the coolest magical setting, and a super awesome treasure hunt. I mean, it starts with a girl washing up on an island and she immediately finds herself water and food and makes her own shelter! She's not helpless! It also made my heart so happy with its friendships and found family. I have no idea why this book hasn't found its audience yet but I'm going to work on changing that.

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Kage Baker left us on January 31, 2010, at the much-too-young age of 57. Those of us who read and loved her Company novels and short stories, beginning with In the Garden of Iden, will miss her more than we can collectively say – though we tried, in those last few weeks, many of us, to tell her what her work had meant to us.

There is still more of her work to come: The Bird of the River, a fantasy novel set in the same milieu as The Anvil of the World and The House of the Stag, will be published by Tor in July 2010. In the meantime, though, her delightful children’s book, The Hotel Under the Sand, will tide us over.

Nominated for the 2009 Andre Norton Award for Young Science Fiction and Fantasy,The Hotel Under the Sand is the kind of show more book that you resolve to send to your nieces and nephews even before you have finished the first page. Any book that starts, “Cleverness and bravery are absolutely necessary for good adventures,” is a book you know those budding book lovers in your family are going to enjoy, and maybe even the non-readers who are usually busy playing sports instead. The book starts with a terrible storm, as all good books should (think of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after all). The storm sweeps Emma away and out to sea, and she must swim for her life. She winds up on an island that has almost nothing but sand – and shipwrecks – for as far as she can see.

Soon, though, she finds that the sand hides something wonderful, and I don’t mean just the ghost who finds her. The Grand Wenlocke, a magnificent hotel, is uncovered by the same storm that brought her to the island. Above the registration desk is a sign that reads, “Time is Forgotten Here,” and sure enough, as long as one remains on the hotel grounds, time outside stands still. The idea was to allow vacationers to spend a month or more without missing more than a weekend or so from their jobs, which I think is an invention that really ought to be perfected in the real world.

The hotel has a magnificent library, of course, putting one in mind of the library from the Disney movie, Beauty and the Beast. There’s a cook who has been there since the hotel slipped under the sand (time stands still, remember; the cook was frozen in time with the hotel, as was the bread she was baking; nothing burned!). A dachshund named Shorty immediately takes to Emma. Before long, a pirate shows up, complete with parrot (yes, this story has everything), and a search for treasure begins. The search has very unusual clues to guide it, and turns up all types of treasures, and even a person who might not be very treasurable at all; it rather depends on how spoiled he is.

The Hotel Under the Sand is an instant classic. Read it to your nine-year-old, or let your 12-year-old read it to you. Or if you’re a grown-up, like me, just sit back and enjoy it. One is never too grown up for this sort of book. show less

I'm not sure how to describe this book. I enjoyed it a lot. I purchased it new not long after it was published and shortly before the author's untimely death. I didn't realize it was a children's book because the author had been writing fantasy and science fiction for adults. I set is aside not intending to wait 14 years before reading it!

I'd guess this is written with a ten year old audience in mind, but I certainly enjoyed it as an aging adult and think it is one of the sweetest children's books I have read in a very long while. An adventure story with a treasure hunt, and very memorable characters. It has many pen and ink drawings which took me a while to appreciate. Nice short chapters that let me read this easily at my leisure. show more Recommended show less

The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker opens with Emma surviving a terrible storm in which she loses everything and everyone in her life. She washes up on the Dunes and spends the first night surviving a sand storm. On her second day she meets a ghost and discovers a long buried hotel.

The narrative style brings to mind Roald Dahl. It begins with extraordinary but relatively unexplained circumstances and proceeds through a series of adventures. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie, though destitute, finds the last remaining Golden Ticket, and for the remainder of the book, takes the our of Willy Wonka's factory where each new room is more usual and dangerous than the last. Emma's adventures are contained within the walls of her show more hotel and are primarily focused on a treasure hunt left behind by the hotel's owner.

Along the way Emma brings together an unlikely set of friends, comprised of a ghost, a runaway, a pirate and a cook. These sorts of ensemble casts with a single child and her collected friends, was de rigueur when I was a child but have fallen out of practice in lieu of a pair (or sometimes trio) of adventuring siblings. Emma's solo status was a refreshing change.

The book would work well for a class read along. The relatively straightforward treasure hunting plot combined with a manageable vocabulary would make it fun book for teachers looking for something newer to read with students.

The Hotel Under the Sand was nominated for a 2009 CYBILS. show less