The Children Next Door - Hardcover

Ure, Jean

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590222937 ISBN 13: 9780590222938

Publisher: Scholastic, 1996

Synopsis

A young girl becomes a living ghost when she discovers her ability to travel through time and space as a magical witness to history.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 3-6?Laura, 11, is an introvert whose shyness is worsened by the family's move to the British countryside. To complicate matters, she is rather sickly and overly sensitive?she's prone to hearing and seeing things that others can't detect. She tries to find the courage to approach the three children she sees playing next door, but when she finally meets the neighbors, the extroverted Zilla is the only girl there. Through several twists and turns in their friendship, Laura discovers that the children she had seen are traces of Zilla's dying grandmother's past. This knowledge allows Laura to ease the elderly woman's final days. Rich characters seem to be Ure's strength, and this fantasy is no exception. Booktalk this small treasure with Janet Taylor Lisle's The Gold Dust Letters (Orchard, 1994) to spark some thoughts about otherworldliness.?Christina Dorr, Calcium Primary School, NY
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Gr. 4^-6. Painfully shy, 11-year-old Laura wishes she were brave enough to talk to the boy and girl she sees playing in the garden next door to her small London house. But when Laura goes next door, Zilla, the girl who lives there, doesn't seem to know anything about the children in the garden. Are they ghosts? Memories? Why do the neighbors and the kids in the garden talk about a terrible accident? Ure has written a touching time travel fantasy in which past and present sometimes merge. At first readers may be as confused as Laura about where and when everyone belongs, but the lively dialogue individualizes the characters, who are as mean, boring, bossy, and lovable as brothers and sisters everywhere. In a beautiful climax, Laura finds the courage to change a tiny piece of the past and undo years of hurt and regret. Hazel Rochman

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0590222937
• ISBN 13: 9780590222938
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 135