84 pages • 2 hours read
N. D. Wilson100 Cupboards
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A 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.
Themes
The Lure and Danger of Adventure
Adventures always contain risks. Those who pursue adventure sometimes pay with their lives, while those who never dare often pay with a dull existence. 100 Cupboards and its characters represent this push-and-pull of risky adventure and safe avoidance. In particular, the two titular characters—Henry and Henrietta—symbolize this dichotomy. Henry yearns for more adventure but fears it; Henrietta leaps to the next exploit but takes her life in her hands when she does so. Between them is Frank, who learned the costs of exploring the cupboards and walked away from them.
There’s an old saying: “Never solve a puzzle that opens the gates of hell.” Solving such a puzzle is precisely what Henry and Henrietta do when they find and open the hidden cupboards. Henrietta shows heedless courage when she opens the Endor cupboard and boldly reaches inside, but she faces the dire consequences of such action when something evil grabs her arm and tries to pull her through. Henry rises to the occasion and stabs at the evil thing, but now that the door’s been opened, it tends to re-open, and eventually the evil thing, 
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