Customer Reviews

Enchanted Castle

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My children and I have been reading this as our bedtime book. My son, age 8, was going to read it himself, but we soon found his sister, age 6, wanted me to read it instead (so I could do the "voices") so it has been turned into the nightly story. The characters: Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy are each drawn clearly and individually. My children are fascinated with Gerald's way of speaking as though he were telling a story. And they love Kathleen's way of alternating between being practical and yet longing for all things "magical". Jimmy is funny and endearing, as he is at that age of Not believing and yet eager for adventure. Their friend Mabel is full of mystery and make-believe and soon pulls them into a grand escapade. The author is able to vividly paint each person and each scene. It is with great reluctance we put the book down after a couple of chapters each night, wanting to finish all at once, but wanting the magic to last a little longer. When we finished, we all decided it was one of our favorites. Extremely well written. I did not find even the beginning dull or slow. From start to finish, this is one of the best children's books I've found. And we've read very many.

Working in a bookstore, I meet a lot of people, especially parents buying books for their children. As you can imagine, several of them ask, "What do you have that's like Harry Potter?" I always recommend E. Nesbit's books. They never know who I'm talking about. But they usually become interested very quickly.

Edith Nesbit was an outspoken British writer who wrote enormously entertaining children?s books in her later years. Many of these books combine normal, everyday children with magical themes or elements. In 'The Enchanted Castle,' three children - Gerald, Cathy, and Jimmy - stumble upon a lush, beautiful garden, where they find a princess who has been asleep for 100 years. Or is she really who she says she is? All the children know is that something strange is going on - like why are the statues moving?

'The Enchanted Castle' IS enchanting. The writing is colorful, exciting, and engaging. If your child is looking for something in the Harry Potter vein, the E. Nesbit books are just what the doctor ordered. Kids won't even care that it was written nearly 100 years ago. It still reads pretty well today, and that's what counts.

291 pages

Although written around a century ago, this still remains one of the great classics of Children's literature. I have not read Harry Potter yet, but I would suspect this book is at least comparable. The plot is actually fairly complex -- there's humor, drama, romance, and magic. It can be read by both children and adults and both will enjoy it.

The story deals with a number of children who find a magic ring that can make your wishes come true. But this only gives a small idea of the wonders that lie within.

Other great Nesbit works -- Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet.

I first read this book at the age of 10, and have made a point of reading it again nearly yearly ever since, for more than 30 years. It is timeless and magical, and for adults as well as children, as long as they have kept their childhood beliefs in enchantment alive. I am not in the habit of gushing praise, but this is absolutely the best book I have ever read, and has become a part of my children's lives as well. I am so happy to see it in print again. My mother searched everywhere for it in the 60's because I was so enamored with it that I wanted to copy it by hand, if necessary. I am now ordering a new untattered copy to keep forever.

This book is a wonderful, magical read. I got it because I watched the BBC adaptation as a child, and loved it. It's a story of magic, childhood and friendship, but more than it it captures the magic of the unknown - the statues that come alive, and the sense of adventure and mystery that every child knows. The story of the Ugli-Wuglies is truly creepy, but necessary - theres too much tendency these days to protect children from anything that might scare them - its good for them to be scared occasionally, they'll come to learn that the real world is far more frightening place. When you read it later as an adult, there's the theme of love, and the pain of love lost and the fact the that nothing is free, everything has to be paid for ultimately. The only reason I deducted a star is that, enchanting though it is, it lacks the depth or richness of, say, Phillipa Pearce's "Tom's Midnight Garden". All the same, still a children's classic, and every child should have the opportunity to read it.

This book launched a whole subgenre--fantasy books in which a group of three to five children (usually mixed gender) cross the boundry between the everyday world into the world of fantasy. It is the inspiration behind CS Lewis's Narnia books, Edward Eager's books, and generations of more recent novels. And it happens to be a wonderful read! My eight-year-old adored it--she's a huge Harry Potter fan (another series in Nesbit's debt) and thought this one was fabulous, though the Victorian language did slow her down a little.

I loved "The Enchanted Castle." It has the same quality that is in all of Edith Nesbit's books--thought provoking and fun. I really like how in all of Edith's books, her characters find out that magic can be annoying when you meddle with it. In other books, like Harry Potter and The Gammage Cup, you seem to get the idea that magic is essential.
In the Enchanted Castle, the characters are Mable, the houskeepers niece, Gerald, the one who knows how to manage grownups, Kathleen, "Cathy Puss Cat," and Jimmy, who is always thinking about his tea. Of course, there are other characters, but I would use up about 6 pages writing them all.
The children find a magic ring that makes you invisible, four meters tall, and is a wishing ring--as well as other things like that. The ring helps them earn money, get into scrapes, and bring two old lovers together again!

The children of Edgar Eager's imagination think so and I'm inclined to agree with them. This one has it all, a sleeping princess, a garden labyrinth, an enchanted castle, not to mention a summer in an abandoned school supervised only by a darling French teacher. Wait, thats only the first two chapters! Truly this is my favorite of Nesbits magic novels featuring her trademark plucky heroine (times two), complicated persnickety magic, and a sequence of misadventures each more inventive and hilarious than the last. The unexpected (and often disastrous) well intentioned exploits in the style of the Railway Children and the Wouldbegoods are delightfully combined with the fantasy of The Magic City and Five Children and It. Simply required reading for any child or adult with the slightest bit of soul.

I first read this book when I was 11 and fell in love with it. I am re-reading it now and love it more than before. Her descriptions of the children's feelings, the way she describes their conversations (they weren't always agreeing with each other!). This book is funny, heart warming, imaginative and everything else wonderful!

A wonderful, fairly innocent adventure involving four children and fantastic imagination. Builds on classics, but reading those first certainly isn't necessary.

This is definitely a read-aloud book for kids with longer attention spans and more extensive vocabulary. Since the book was written in the "proper voice" of a woman of the turn of the 20th Century, the language can get a bit weighty and the vocabulary is certainly more advanced than that used by most of us these days, but we got over it by reading with a bit of a "stuffy attitude." We pretended to be "propah" (imagine an accent there) ladies when we read this aloud.

I read much of it aloud...when I could peel it out of the hands of our 6 year old precocious reader.

The 4-year-old (precocious verbalist) was less enthralled due in large part, I believe, to the vocabulary and style of writing.