The Children of Green Knowe - Hardcover

Boston, L. M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571064604 ISBN 13: 9780571064601

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1954

Synopsis

L. M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century. Now the children of Green Knowe--both alive and ghostly--are back in appealing new editions.
The spooky original illustrations have been retained, but dramatic new cover art by Brett Helquist (illustrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events) gives the books a fresh, timeless appeal for today's readers.

About 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

Review

"This is a book . . . to own and read aloud and come back to over and over again. It is one of the best fantasies I have ever read."--"Horn Book"
"An uncommon tale . . . told with a gratifying blend of the eerie, the sinister, and the familiar."--"New Yorker"

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 1954
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571064604
• ISBN 13: 9780571064601
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 157