Now, obviously, my subjective experience of the novel is not an objective determination of how popular this series may be. So what sort of name recognition does this series - which *checks Wikipedia* runs to 12 books - have, anyway? I would have sucked this book right out of the kiddie section at the library when I was eight years old and possibly might have considered never returning if I were the sort of bad girl who’d do that. On the other hand, I - as dorky and bookish and in love with all things weird as a child (and still) as House protagonist Lewis Barnavelt - would have been the prime grade-schooler audience for this book in the late 70s and early 80s, right when the book was new and fresh in its acclaim, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it. But this movie is based on the acclaimed-at-the-time 1973 young-adult novel by John Bellairs, and it’s very plain that someone in Hollywood demanded, “Get me the next Harry Potter!” so probably Hollywood figured that retaining the name of the book was a good idea. Wait, the house with a what? With a clock in its walls? Don’t most houses have clocks in the walls? Okay, maybe on their walls, but still… a house with a clock in its walls doesn’t sound terribly weird or frightening or anything that The House with a Clock in Its Walls would appear from the outside that it wants to be.
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