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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
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From AudioFile
A young boy arrives at an old country house in the midst of a flood and discovers that it is inhabited not only by his great-grandmother, but by a host of half-seen children--inhabitants of the manor from centuries past. British pronunciations abound without distracting. Each character is vocalized distinctly; however, not all the voices are pleasantly engaging. Some voices seem overly theatrical; others are inconsistent; and inexplicably, the great-grandmother's stories-- a major narrative element--are told in the narrator's rather than her character's voice. Combined with the difficulty of overlapping layers of time, the production falls short of truly involving the listener. K.T.B. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--This text refers to the
Audio Cassette
edition.
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