The Children of Green Knowe - Softcover

Boston, L. M.

4.02

9,101 ratings by Goodreads

9780152171513: The Children of Green Knowe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0152171517 ISBN 13: 9780152171513

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers, 1989

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

A lonely young boy comes to live in an old English country house and has fanciful adventures with the children who played there generations ago.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

This is not an easy book, and therein lies its charm. L.M. Boston's classic is a sophisticated mood piece disguised as a children's ghost story. As young Toseland goes to live with his grandmother in the family's ancestral home, the reader is plunged immediately into the world of Green Knowe. Like Toseland, who actually rows up to his new home in the midst of a flood, we have a hard time finding our bearings. Toseland discovers a funny kind of grandmother awaiting him--one who speaks elliptically of the children and animals she keeps around the house: they might be memories, they might be ghosts. It's never quite clear where real life leaves off and magic begins. Toseland admires a deer: "A deer seems more magic than a horse." His grandmother is quick to respond: "Very beautiful fairy-tale magic, but a horse that thinks the same thoughts that you do is like strong magic wine, a love philtre for boys."

With this meshing of the magical and the real, Boston evokes a childlike world of wonder. She compounds the effect by combining gorgeous images and eerily evocative writing. Toseland goes out on a snowy morning: "In front of him, the world was an unbroken dazzling cloud of crystal stars, except for the moat, which looked like a strip of night that had somehow sinned and had no stars in it." The loosely plotted story is given more resonance still through liberal use of biblical imagery and Anglo-Saxon mythology. For those willing to suspend their disbelief and read carefully, the world of Green Knowe offers a wondrous escape. --Claire Dederer

About the Author:

LUCY MARIA BOSTON (1892-1990) purchased a ramshackle manor house near Cambridge, England, in 1935, which over a period of two years she lovingly restored. It is this house that inspired her, at the age of sixty-two, to take pen in hand and create the beloved Green Knowe series.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.