73 pages • 2 hours read
John ConnollyThe Book of Lost Things
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Of Jonathan Tulvey and Billy Golding, and Men Who Dwell by Railway Tracks”
Rose and David’s father spend most of their time looking after David’s half-brother, Georgie. Rose wants David to like her, but David feels like his father married Rose as a replacement for his mother. He resents Georgie’s presence because Georgie reminds him of all the changes in his life and steals his father’s attention. He withdraws as much as possible to avoid his new family, spending his days reading the old fairy tale books in his room from the window seat that overlooks the sunken garden.
David is curious about the books’ previous owner and finds the name Jonathan Tulvey written inside the covers of two books. David learns from Rose that his room used to be Jonathan’s, the elder brother of Rose’s father. At age 14, Jonathan disappeared along with his younger adopted sister, Anna. The two children were never found, and Jonathan’s room and books were left as they were when he disappeared.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Of Intruders and Transformations”
Tension in the house builds, as Rose is stretched thin caring for Georgie and David’s father works hard in his job analyzing German codes for the war. David begins to experience “waking dreams” (48) in which he sees visions of a dark, cold forest, and hears what sounds like his mother’s voice. On one of the last days of summer, David goes for a walk behind the house. When he looks up at his bedroom window, he notices that the ivy growing on the wall is thickest near his window and has unnaturally climbed straight to his window rather than spreading out as ivy normally does. David then notices a figure moving inside his bedroom. The figure flips through one of David’s books. It stops when he hears Georgie crying in the other room and reaches out as if trying to pluck something out of the air.
David runs and tells his father he saw a man in his room. David’s father goes upstairs, finds a magpie in David’s room, and forces it out the window. However, David is convinced that what he saw was more than a magpie. He can picture the long, evil face and black eyes he saw. That night, David again hears his mother’s voice, this time calling to him “from the darkness of the sunken garden” (54).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Of the War, and the Way Between Worlds”
David’s father and Rose get into a fight, and in the aftermath, David and Rose snap at each other. David tells Rose that his father still loves his mother, and always will, and Rose reacts in the moment by slapping David. When David’s father gets home from work, he punishes David for his disrespect to Rose by telling him he must stay in his room. David starts to cry, and the voices from the books on his shelves grow louder. A hole opens in his room to reveal a glimpse into another world. David sees a dark castle and hears his mother’s voice call to him: “David, I am not dead. Come to me, and save me” (61).
The next thing David knows, he’s waking up in his room and it is nighttime. He hears his mother’s voice again, asking for help. She tells him to follow her through the garden. David goes outside in his pajamas, and as he approaches the sunken garden, he sees an airplane on fire, falling quickly. The plane is heading directly for the sunken garden. David climbs through a gap in the wall of the garden just as the plane hits the ground and explodes.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Connolly continues to use foreshadowing to give the reader hints about Elsewhere. For example, as David reads from his window seat, he has a view of the sunken garden, and his waking dreams are strongest near the sunken garden. He also notices a gap in the garden wall that he could fit through. Finally, he increasingly hears what sounds like his mother’s voice and feels drawn towards the voice and the garden. All of these uses of foreshadowing surrounding the garden provide hints that the garden will be David’s gateway into another world. In combination with his discovery of Jonathan Tulvey’s name and history, they also hint that Jonathan’s disappearance is linked to the sunken garden.
Connolly highlights many similarities between David and Jonathan Tulvey to create a sense of mystery and to show how similar life experiences led the two boys down the same path. For example, just like David, Jonathan had a younger sibling that he resented and refused to accept. He also loved fairytale books, just like David, and experienced recurring nightmares. Now, David is living in Jonathan’s old room and reading his books. The similarities between the two characters make the reader wonder whether David will disappear, just like Jonathan did. Later in the novel, David will have to choose between following Jonathan’s path or forging his own. Connolly’s comparison of these two characters piques the reader’s interest concerning how and why Jonathan disappeared, and how their lives will intersect later in the story.
Connolly also highlights nature to show how the boundary between David’s world and the world from his waking dreams begins to blur. For example, ivy grows on the walls of David’s room, and he notices that rather than spreading across the walls of the house’s exterior, the ivy grows unnaturally straight to his window before spreading out and surrounding it, “making his room look more than ever like a part of the natural world” (50). Connolly’s use and descriptions of nature draw the reader’s attention to the overlap between David’s world and another world and hints at the natural setting that will dominate most of the novel.
