The What Do We Know About? series explores the mysterious, the unknown and the unexplained, and breaks each topic down for younger readers, whether they know anything about the subject already or not. There are currently twelve books in the series, ranging from many different cryptids to aliens, Atlantis and other interesting mysteries.

Synopsis: In 1884, Sarah Winchester began building a large mansion in Santa Clara County, California. Under Sarah's direction, the house rose to be seven stories high and filled with mysterious features, including stairs that lead to nowhere and windows that look into other interior rooms. The house is more than just oddly designed, however: many people believe that it is haunted. What made the heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, an independent woman in many ways ahead of her time, create such an unusual house? Is it really filled with ghosts and spirit energy? Find out more in this nonfiction title about one of America's most famously unexplainable and possibly haunted houses.

I knew about the Winchester House already and had heard many stories about its bizarre construction - that it's haunted and that Sarah Winchester was the widow of the son of the man behind the Winchester repeating rifle who also inherited that empire. However, this book suggests that, while the last of those things is true, much of what I'd heard was simply made up.

Some of it may be because she didn't behave like women were expected to behave and that spurred stories even while she was still alive, acting as foreman and architect and doing some of the construction work on the building herself. More came after her death, when the man who bought her house realised he could build up more excitement when he opened the house for tours.

I was happy how the authors not only covered the myth and mystery that people built up around her and the house, but also explained other possiblities behind her strange behaviour, always wearing a heavy black veil when going out in public and not socializing with anyone. It turns out that she had extreme arthritis which caused her problems getting around and she had poor teeth that she may well have wanted to hide because they were embarrassing to her personally.

They also explain that some of the oddities of the house may well have been unintentional, like staircases that only lead to ceilings and doors that open to nothingness. The likely cause of some of these anomalies is the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, which toppled her seven foot tower and destroyed a good portion of the house. Sarah was so distraught over the damage that, rather than tear it down and rebuild, she cleared the rubble and had the crew simply put a roof over the top of what remained. That left those strange things, the doors opened into nothingness because the rooms behind them were gone, and staircases went nowhere since the floors they led to no longer existed.

Unbelievably, when she passed away, the appraiser who took a look at her house thought it was so odd and strange that he said it had no value, regardless of the expensive wood, marble and stained glass that had been used for building. They split up her land, one half with the house and the other without. The unfettered property sold quickly, but it seemed no one wanted the house until John Brown, a businessman who owned amusement parks, decided he could make lots of money doing guided tours.

All in all, I learned a lot of things I didn't know about Sarah Winchester and found her a fascinating person, even if one of her long term companions said that a lot of the hype behind her mysticism and obsession with the number 13 was simply made up by John Brown, who also added many small freaky additions to the house after she'd died.

This is my second What Do We Know About? book, because I've already read and reviewed one about the Loch Ness Monster. I'm now looking forward even more to the other three on my shelf, because they're well-written and engaging, even to a grown-up much older than their target audience. ~~ Dee Astell

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