Customer Reviews

The Children Of Green Knowe

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I'd never heard of the Green Knowe books until I recently picked this one up. Too bad, this is a story I would have loved to have someone read to me when I was a kid and which I look forward to reading to my own kids. It is the magical, mysterious tale of young Master Toseland, who goes to spend the Christmas holiday with his great-grandmother Mrs. Oldknow at the family estate of Green Noah. Arriving by train, he finds the grounds flooded and the groundskeeper, Mr. Boggis, must pick him up in a rowboat to carry him to the house. It gradually becomes apparent that the house is temporally as well as physically isolated. First through overheard giggles and then by shadowy glimpses, it is revealed to Tolly (as Mrs. Oldknow calls him) that the house is inhabited by the spirits of children from generations long passed. In particular, Toby, Linnet and Alexander, three siblings felled by the plague hundreds of years earlier, romp about the building and grounds. Mrs Oldknow, who is well aware of the phenomena, tells Tolly stories about the children and the history of the manor, including a gypsy curse that was placed on a creepy topiary of Noah, which is how the place (originally Green Knowe) got its name.

Lucy Boston was inspired to write these books--this is the first in a series of eight--after restoring the Manor House at Hemingford Grey, which dates to the year 1130. The restoration process discovered all kinds of hidden fireplaces and windows and other reminders of the house's ancient past. This apparently awakened in her a sense of history on a human scale and reminded her of how easily we ignore such things. She set out to help others recall this sense of wonder:

I would like to remind adults of joy, now obsolete, and I would like to encourage children to use and trust their senses for themselves at first hand--their ears, eyes and noses, their fingers and soles of their feet, their skins and their breathing, their muscular joy and rhythms and heartbeats, their instinctive loves and pity and awe of the unknown.

She succeeded brilliantly. This enchanting book is suffused with an aura magic and a real spirit of joy.

GRADE: A

This wonderful book escaped my notice as a child, and now I know why--the local library doesn't have a copy of this, or any of the other titles in the series! How awful!

I first found Green Knowe through a listing in the "Best Books for Children" guide. It's now my absolute favorite! I won't attempt a synopsis here--you can read the other reviews for that. But I did want to say it's absolutely MAGICAL! The story is a bit spooky, definitely old-fashioned, mysterious, and sweet, all at the same time! I have to say, as someone who reads a lot of "kiddy lit," I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in this book. In a lesser novel, the sweet old grandmother character would've turned out to be secretly evil, or a witch, or some such nonsense. Happily, she's a magical sweet old lady, and the relationship between this ancient one and her little (great) grandson is really charming.

As a matter of fact, the real conflict only comes in just at the end (with a scary scene I won't spoil), so parents who are overly-concerned that their child not read *anything* containing conflict, "bad guys," or evil, be forwarned--all is not goodness and light here. Personally, I find a story about the struggle between good and evil (in the same category as C.S. Lewis' Narnia books) uplifting. The magical "ghost" aspect of it is also treated in a way that promotes good feeling, in my opinion (I know some parents do not appreciate *any* references to the paranormal, either--so I wanted to mention it).

But for the rest of us--what a FIND the Green Knowe books are! I've bought a copy for all my neices and nephews. They're off reading Harry Potter and the like. I've read HP, by the way, just to be able to make educated remarks about it. It certainly wasn't the worst book I ever read, but I sure hope you parents are also giving your kids copies of: The Hobbit, and the rest of Tolkein, the Narnia books (Did you know C.S. Lewis and Tolkein were good friends?), the Edward Eager books (start with Half-Magic), the E. Nesbit books (talk about classics in Brit. Kid Lit!! C.S. Lewis cited Nesbit as a big influence!), and Lucy Boston's beautiful series!! Why not throw in Richard Peck's series? Wow--I've got a lot of books here--time to make a list! Happy Reading!

I first knew Green Knowe as a child, having discovered the series at my local bookmobile one summer in the middle sixties. Later I visited Lucy Boston and came to know the real Green Knowe and its charmed mistress. The odd truth is that while Green Knowe is referred to as a fantasty it's very much real: a haunted, enchanted, moated anachronism in the midst of the so-called "real" world. I give this series to any child that seems to have a glimmer of imagination. It should be reissued immediately: Lucy Boston can write circles around anyone scribbling for children today.

I've been spending some time revisiting my youth via children's books, and in trying to piece together titles from fragments of often misremembered storylines, I came upon this book, which I never read as a child but which piqued my interest enough to check it out as an adult. And now how I wish I had visited the magical world of Green Knowe when I was younger! With ghosts and friendly animals, an intact castle home, mysterious statuary, verdant grounds, and even a curse, this story holds so much of what an imaginative young mind grasps for. It is lovely and humane and, what struck me most of all, having so recently read so many other works of juvenile fiction in which the language is merely a vehicle, extremely lyrically written. The language is the real wonder of the book--accessible to young people but so lovely and evocative, and the fact that the language holds its own against a storyline and a created world that is itself so poetic is true testament to the book's magic. Read it as children, read it as adults--just read it!

For mature and thoughtful children--and for adults, like all the best kids' lit--this British book, the first in a series, is a true gem. Eight-year-old Toseland Oldknow (cruelly called "Towser" or "Toto" by his schoolmates and new stepmother) is sent to the old manor house of Green Noah (the discrepancy in names is explained partway through) to stay with his great-grandmother, Linnet Oldknow (who apparently married her cousin, in case readers wonder), during the Christmas holidays. The first thing he learns is that he bears an ancient family name, which his Granny shortens to Tolly, by which we will know him henceforward. It soon becomes apparent to him that the ancient stone pile is full of secrets: he hears movement and childish laughter, sees things out of the corner of his eye, and finds a wooden Japanese mouse that's inclined to move and squeak under his pillow. Everything traces back to a 17th-century portrait of three Oldknow children--Toby (another Toseland), 14; Alexander, about 11; and Linnet, 6--with their mother and grandmother, of whom the latter is a dead ringer for his Granny. As Mrs. Oldknow tells stories of this trio, their pets, their adventures, and their seagoing father and older brother, they seem to come more and more to life, until Tolly actually finds himself encountering them--or rather their ghosts, since they died in the Great Plague. He also finds out that Mrs. Oldknow played with them too when she was his age. Then he accidentally learns of a curse placed on the Oldknows by a vengeful gypsy in the 19th century--and very nearly falls victim to it himself, only to be saved by his ghostly friends.

Boston's evocation of the house, the countryside, the misty borderline between two realities, and the final horrific manifestation of the curse (if your kids were frightened by Aslan's fate in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," you'll need to exercise caution with regard to this particular sequence), are masterful, and her gradual revelation of the many mysteries of the manor and the family are splendidly paced. The three 17th-century children are as alive as 1950's Tolly, not only to Tolly but to the reader. I reread this series out of the library several times and finally bought them when I was in my 20's, and I still go back to reread them almost 30 years later. No one should fail to experience them.

A lifelong reader, having children who loved to be read to allowed me to revisit books that I had loved as a child. Some had sentimental value; very few retained their magical hold on me as an adult. The Children of Green Knowe has the shimmering quality that forces one to regard the ordinary with a new hyper-awareness. Boston's beautiful prose situates one within the stone halls of her mysterious house, where wooden mice squeak, and rocking horses move without apparent animation. She gives the diurnal an extraordinary gloss: after reading her books, nothing else seems quite the same. A dream of a book. (The rest of the series is good, too. Someone should reissue these as a boxed set.)

Reading this book is to return your childhood. I heard the first chapter of this book one evening on the radio. I was seven years of age and new to reading, This book captured my interest and lead me to the library and the joy of books. The original hard cover book of Lucy Bostons,The children of Greene Knowe was filled with illustrations made from woodcuts, done by her son Peter Boston. The erie shadows of the pictures added to magical content of the book.The story flowed and joined the present with the past,the children became real to the readers, and upon visiting, the house where the story was penned it was difficult to look upon this story has fiction, after fourty years of owning this book I still get a special joy from reading it.

Reading this book was a strange experience for me, as even though I had never read it before in my life, it evoked a strange sense of familiarity that only the very best books, movies and music are able to achieve. Usually these are reserved for the ones that are experienced in childhood and carried through into adulthood, but every now and then one arrives that touch one on so deep a level that one feels they've always known them. "The Children of Green Knowe" is one such book.

This is the perfect book for anyone that has a love of old homes, and especially for those who have very little chances of exploring them, much less living in them. Since Lucy Boston wrote the Green Knowe series based on her own house and garden that was built nearly nine hundred years ago, the descriptions of the house and grounds are painstakingly created and thus utterly realistic. As her young protagonist explores them, so too does the reader, and her poetic imagery concerning all the marvels that he finds are vivid, mysterious and beautiful all at once.

The story itself is slow and dreamlike; it can hardly be called a story, rather it is better described as the record of a young boy and his semi-magical experiences throughout his winter at Green Knowe. Seven year old Toseland is sent to live with his great-grandmother during the school break whilst his parents are in Burma, and despite some initial fears concerning Mrs Oldknow and her strange existence in the flooded waters of the property, Toseland (or "Tolly" as she calls him) soon finds himself quite at home among the welcoming atmosphere of the house, the variety of friendly animals, and the myraid of interesting relics to be found. Outside, the wintery landscape goes through many changes, from a flooded lake to snow-covered hillocks, all watched over by the statue of St Christopher against the wall.

But there are other components at work that Mrs Oldknow and her manservant Boggis seem reluctant to talk about - the spirits of children that lived in the house over three hundred years ago still seem to be dwelling within the house: Alexander, Toby and Linnet. Tolly is eagar to get to know them, especially if it means seeing Toby's old horse Feste, and through several designs of his own, Tolly just might get his wish. The visitations with the "ghosts" come across as perfectly natural and not at all sinister, through there is just the right amount of mystery about them that keeps the normality of the house just forever verging on the magical.

Throughout the book, Lucy Boston's Catholicism is made clear, through her use of St Christopher and the descriptions of finely decorated cathedrals as opposed to the less-elabourate Protestant churches, and so with Catholic favour comes the barest touch of Paganism that (probably unintentionally) lies behind the animal hedge-sculptures that seem to come to life, the ghostly occurances and the personification of inanimate objects. There is even a touch of the sinister in Green Noah, the evil humped tree that lies as a curse upon the family...

For anyone who likes dreamy, meandering stories but have no idea where to find them, look no further than "The Children of Green Knowe". There's enough charm and mystery for any child or adult who long for such a place to live in, and Mrs Oldknow's stories-within-the-story, Tolly's wonderment at his home, and the many strange events that happen make this a hidden gem in children's literature.

I wasn't entirely certain what to expect when I picked up the much beloved but rarely discussed, "The Children of Greene Knowe". What I found was a book that was a little like "The Secret Garden" and a little like the beginning of "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase". It is, all in all, a very pleasant story about a boy and his ghostly companions. There are brief moments of conflict, but on the whole only good things happen to the protagonist. For children, this is an excellent introduction into the world of mysterious goings on.

Toseland (or Tolly for short) has just been sent by his father in Burma to live with his great-grandmother in jolly old England. Tolly is a little nervous, not knowing quite what to expect. What he finds is a magical castle called Green Noah, presided over by a loving kindly grandmother. But strange dealings occur in the house when Tolly arrives. A snatch of laughter here, reflected children's faces there, and inanimate objects that have the tendency of coming to life. To Tolly's delight there are three children in the castle, cheery ghosts of siblings that lost their lives in the Great Plague. Don't expect any meanderings on the meaning of life after death, or any explanations for that matter. The children are perfectly happy flitting about from inside to outside, and in time they and Tolly become good friends. It is only the malevolent presence of the nasty gypsy-cursed tree Green Noah that keeps Tolly from perfect happiness.

When you pick up a book in which a veritable orphan is being sent to live with previously unknown relatives, you usually do not find an idyllic situation. Anne of "Anne of Green Gables" had her problems. So did the Baudelaire orphans of "A Series of Unfortunate Events". Which makes Tolly's story all the more interesting. For quite a while I was convinced that there would be no real conflict at any point. Tolly's days are fun, improving when he comes to know the children better. Reading this book, I was reminded of my own childhood days and the millions of ways kids can find to have fun on their own. When Green Noah makes his appearance in the tale he is a truly odd spectacle. I was delighted to find, however, that when the tree decides to blindly come after Tolly it is a moment of real heart-stopping terror.

The writing in this book may strike some as a little pendantic. So I cannot say whole-heartedly that every child will like it. But some will love it, I can tell. L.M. Boston is the kind of author who can write deeply evocative sentences in a children's book and never appear ridiculous for it. I was particularly taken with a passage that read, "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 book is full of beautiful lines like this one, yet it retains the interest of the child reader.

Kids who like fantasy but find some books a little too scary or nerve wracking might take to "The Children of Greene Knowe" very readily. Any kid who has loved Frances Burnett, Edward Eagar, or E. Nesbit will adore this story. Get `em while they're young and they may even wish to read this book's multiple sequels. It is a charming series.

This remarkable book, written in simple, beautiful style, grabs you at the very beginning with Tolly's most unusual arrival at Green Knowe, his grandmother's ancient home. The magic starts there and simply never stops; even such everyday activities as feeding the birds have a special twist at Green Knowe. The book isn't just for youngsters; anyone who enjoys a good, gentle fantasy story with a little history mixed in will be enchanted. Get a copy and settle down for a good read!