So There's This Book...

There's this book that I read when I was 10 and I've never forgotten it because I LOVED it. A girl (somehow I remember her as a teenager but that's not right) goes walking in the woods near her home and follows a small white dog through a tunnel. When she goes through the tunnel, the world is different, although she doesn't know why-and she meets a young man sitting on the steps of an old castle. They go inside so he can give her a tour, and he starts to tell her stories about the shadows that she sees on the walls.
I always thought this book was called The Enchanted Woods or Magical Forest-something like that. And I could only remember the name of the girl (Lucy) and some of the different kinds of fairies in it (Yes, it's a book about fairies and goblins and such. Deal with it). But last week I put into Google everything I remembered about it, but left out the title (which was good because it was wrong) and there it was. Lucy, the little white dog, Prince Mika, all of it. I was thrilled-and laughed to read the comments at Amazon from all the women, both older and younger than I who all got the book from Scholastic books (which had to be where I got it) and read this book at 10 or so. they all loved it as much as I and remembered it far better than I did-and all loved it as much as I did. I ordered it-of course I did-and I have to say I'm not disappointed with it so far. It's not written as if for children and it's not all happy, cute, sweet, fairies-even at 10 I would have hated that. Even though I had already started Absolution Gap, I had to read and I'll report later on the outcome. It won't be the same as when I was 10 but we'll see.
Oh, the title? Shadow Castle. A must-read for everyone, age 10.