64 pages 2 hours read

Mary Downing Hahn

Closed for the Season

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009

A 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.

Symbols & Motifs

The Written Word

The written word is a crucial motif that plays an important role in Closed for the Season. As a librarian herself, Hahn is likely more than aware of the important role that libraries can play in a child’s life. The library is at the very center of the boys’ investigation. They use the library to make copies of the newspaper and Mrs. Donaldson’s letters, and they even use it to find the old maps of the Magic Forest. The copies of the letters and maps ultimately prove to be an indispensable part of the boys’ investigation, without which the police’s case against Mr. DiSilvio may well have also fallen apart. Though certain people like Rhoda, Anthony, and Mrs. Forbes may view reading with some scorn, books and intellect are things that are strongly upheld as positive traits and hobbies in the narrative. People who do not read, like Silas Phelps or Billy Jarmon, are ridiculed, often by Arthur himself, for their seeming lack of intellect.

Outside of the more practical ways that reading helps the boys in the novel, it also offers certain characters an emotional outlet.

Related Titles

By Mary Downing Hahn

Plot Summary

logo

December Stillness

Mary Downing Hahn

December Stillness

Mary Downing Hahn

Study Guide

logo

Deep and Dark and Dangerous

Mary Downing Hahn

Deep and Dark and Dangerous

Mary Downing Hahn

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE

logo

The Old Willis Place

Mary Downing Hahn

The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Story

Mary Downing Hahn

Study Guide

logo

Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story

Mary Downing Hahn

Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story

Mary Downing Hahn

Study Guide

logo

Took

Mary Downing Hahn

Took: A Ghost Story

Mary Downing Hahn