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An Episode of Sparrows (New York Review Children's Collection)
 
 
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An Episode of Sparrows (New York Review Children's Collection) [Hardcover]

Rumer Godden (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Book Description

8 and up3 and upNew York Review Children's Collection
A much-loved English novel reminiscent of The Secret Garden

Someone has dug up the private garden in the square and taken buckets of dirt, and Miss Angela Chesney of the Garden Committee is sure that a gang of boys from run-down Catford Street must be to blame. But Angela's sister Olivia isn't so sure. Olivia wonders why the neighborhood children—the “sparrows” she sometimes watches from the window of her house —have to be locked out of the garden. Don't they have a right to enjoy the place, too? But neither Angela nor Olivia has any idea what sent the neighborhood waif Lovejoy Mason and her few friends in search of “good, garden earth.” Still less do they imagine where their investigation of the incident will lead them—to a struggling restaurant, a bombed-out church, and at the heart of it all, a hidden garden.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

RUMER GODDEN (1907-1998) grew up in India, where her father ran a steamship company. When her husband left her penniless in Calcutta with two daughters to raise, she started to write books to pay off her many debts. She wrote over sixty books for adults and young adults, including The Doll’s House, Impunity Jane, and The Greengage Summer.

Product Details

  • Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: NYR Children's Collection; First Edition edition (October 31, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1590171241
  • ISBN-13: 978-1590171240
  • Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.9 x 8.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A gem of a book, September 24, 2005
This review is from: An Episode of Sparrows (New York Review Children's Collection) (Hardcover)
This tiny little book is an absolute gem of simplicity, love and hope. A precociously aware, yet innocent little girl has been left with the owner of a struggling restuarant and his wife, to raise, by her mother, a woman on the fringes of show business, who cares for no one but herself. The child, Lovejoy, becomes obsessed with the idea of creating a garden in the ruins of a bombed out church, and enlists the aid of a local boy, Tip Malone. When they remove earth from a nearby enclosed garden, they are prosecuted by Miss Angela Chesney, an opinionated, domineering woman who can see no other path in life except her own, and who rules even her elder, more compassionate sister with the iron fist of mockery. It's a short story but one which made me laugh and cry because I could feel the sheer frustration, as well as the determination of Lovejoy as she battles the inexorable might of the adult world, a world which can not, or will not, see things from a child's perspective. I'm sorry that I've missed this beautiful book until now, but am grateful to have found it in an op-shop.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A simple, but heart-wrenching book, December 6, 1998
By 
John Rice (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
As a child I read this book. I read it again. I remembered the poignant moments of this novel. Lovejoy's heartbreak over the destruction of her garden, her intense loneliness and desperation when she learns her mother has left her, Olivia's pain when she realizes she cannot live to belong to someone. Godden writes of the gritty streets of London in the post-war years. Her story of Lovejoy, Tip and Sparkey fighting against the brutal realities of survival to create something beautiful ins both inspiring and charming.

Overall stands the statue of the Virgin disturbing and consoling the efforts of the girl who tries to keep things clean and pretty.

The characters of this story, the Chesneys, Mrs Combie and her husband Vincent, Father Lambert and Charles and Liz give flesh and spirit to the bleakness of a world trying to rise from ashes, with hope, tarnished and torn, but insistent.

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a work of art, July 18, 2000
By A Customer
"An Episode of Sparrows" captures, with the consummate artistry of Rumer Godden, a little sparrow-girl who nearly falls to the ground. Lovejoy's garden, in the shadow of a ruined church in postwar London, blossoms with such awful frailty that one holds one's breath with suspense. Vincent's West End-style restaurant, trapped in Catford Street, blossoms as well. thanks to Miss Olivia's at last fulfilled desire for "an ordinary little bit of life." Lyrical use of language, touches the heart,lifts the mind. A marvel of restraint and poetry.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
THE Garden Committee had met to discuss the earth; not the whole earth, the terrestrial globe, but the bit of it that had been stolen from the Gardens in the Square. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
good garden earth, vinegar bottle, candle box
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Catford Street, Father Lambert, Miss Dolben, Jiminy Cricket, Inspector Russell, Blue Moons, Miss Chesney, Sister Agnes, Tip Malone, Garden Committee, Number Eleven, Lovejoy Mason, Miss Challoner, Mortimer Street, Doctor Wychcliffe, Garden Row, Hail Mary, Priest's House, Uncle Francis, Doctor Dagleish, High Street, Our Lady of Sion, Angelica Kauffman, Miss Angela Chesney, Mortimer Square
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