Make-Believe (Curley Large Print Books) [Large Print] [Paperback]

Elizabeth Goudge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1994 | Series: Curley Large Print Books

Follows the activities of the five lively du Frocq children and their parents on Guernsey in the English Channel in the late 1800s.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 267 pages
• Publisher: John Curley & Assoc; Lrg edition (June 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792719492
• ISBN-13: 978-0792719496
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,070,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More island magic, December 5, 2003

By 

L O'connor (richmond, surrey United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Make-Believe (Curley Large Print Books) (Hardcover)

This is a collection of short stories about the du Frocq family from Island Magic. The tone is much more light-hearted than the earlier book, there is none of the dark drama of Island Magic, the Grandfather for instance, although an autocrat is not a malignant figure as he is in island Magic. In this collection the boisterous and ingeneous du Frocq children involve a number of unwary characters in their madcap schemes, a famous actor finds himself taken prisoner and locked in the loft, a publisher is persuaded to buy a bookshop that will run at a massive loss, a doctor rash enough to set up a rival practice to Grandfather's is outwitted, the new island Seigneur is persuaded not to evict an aged miller from his mill. The stories are full of humour and charm, this is a lovely book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Children's Stories from Goudge's Channel Islands ancestors, November 30, 2011

By 

John Gough "John Gough - Deakin University" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Make-believe (Hardcover)

Make-Believe: Stories from the Channel Islands ancestors
Anyone who has read Elizabeth Goudge's FIRST novel, "Island Magic", would have been delighted with the boistrous, imaginative children whose adventures provide touches of high humour, while also interweaving with the more serious narrative threads concerning the adults in this remarkable, rich book.
Knowing that many aspects of "Island Magic", as with her other Channel Islands epic "Green Dolphin Country" are based on Goudge's own Guernsey ancestors, we might hope for a sequel to "Island Magic": what happened NEXT? What happened LATER to the children? What ELSE did the children do?

"Make Believe" is not an adult novel. It is written for children, in the way that, for example, Edith Nesbit wrote for children.
Nor is it a sequel to "Island Magic".
But it is an amusing, often touching collection of unconnected short-story adventures and scrapes that happen to the children from "Island Magic".

The illustrations are superb: but we expect no less from C. Walter Hodges, who also illustrated "The Little White Horse", "Sister of the Angels", and "Smoky-House".

The stories are seemingly slight. But Goudge is a subtle writer of short stories.

"Make-Believe" (the story): Colin plays a pretend game with a strange man, locks him up as part of the game, suspects the man is a runaway soldier who murdered a nasty sergeant -- but he is really an Islander who has become a famous actor, returning to the island for a ceremonial dinner.

"The Well of St George": Jacqueline secretly over-eats (again?!): Grandpapa prescribes awful medicine; Peronelle obtains a herbal remedy from the witchlike, but good Madame Dumaresqe.

"Rescue on the Island": The old bookshop owner, Jean Garis, is helped to avoid bankruptcy and the charity of a nasty nephew when Peronelle and Michelle rescue a conceited London publisher from a yachting accident.

"The New Moon": Mother prevaricates in the existence of fairoes: Colette runs away, climbs into a coach, thinking it is Grandpapa's, and is found by Sebastian de la Rue, who had once been engaged to Mother; Sebastian and Mother are reconciled (Mother had originally jilted him), and Sebastian honours a promise to Colette about fairies and a New Moon wish.

"Picnic With Albert": The children visit Grandpapa, and take Albert the donkey on a picnic: this happens to help Grandpapa one-up the new English doctor.

"Doing Good": Colette and Colin are inspired by Mother's romantically elaborated story of the Good Samaritan to do good deeds: they give all their apples to a poor boy, and then give him a job: he turns out to be a mistreated orphan who adults had ignored.

"The Forester's Ride": a Guy Fawkes tradition (Guy Gawkes was a Catholic who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament: this is celebrated annually by children calling at houses asking for "a penny for the guy", as they use a wheel-barrow to trundle around a scarecrow-like effigy of Guy Fawkes, which is later ceremonially burned on a bonfire, with fireworks, and toffee and treacle-rich gingerbread) of riding around the Island, begging for charity inspires the children to borrow the new young non-Islander-born Seigneur's ("lord", that is, "squire" or "laird": Island headman or governor) horses to beg for the poor old mlller (who owes money to the Seigneur): the Seigneur discovers what is happening, and all is resolved.

"Midnight in the Stable": The children go Christmas caroling to the nasty neighbour Marquand: they reconcile him to his grand-daughter Denise, who had run away from her betrothed Mathieu Torode (a milkman, farmhand at the children's farm Bon Repos -- Good Rest) to marry a Frenchman, and had secretly returned, now widowed, with a baby: the young mother is discovered with her baby in the stable of Bon Repos at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, with the farm animals kneeling (according to ancient Island legend, and as recorded in famous Christmas Eve poems by Thomas Hardy and John Betjeman): all are reconciled!

The debt to Edith Nesbit (as in "The Would-be Goods") should be obvious.
But as an addition to Goudge's body of adult short stories, these are to be treasured!

John Gough -- Deakin University -- [e-mail]