Product Description

Tolly's great grandmother isn't a witch, but both she and her old house, Green Knowe, are full of a very special kind of magic. There are other children in the house - children who were happy there centuries before. Running around Green Knowe's moat, gardens and mysterious rooms, Tolly slowly discovers them, their toys and animals, and their wonderful stories...This work is a haunting, atmospheric classic from Carnegie Medal winner Lucy Boston.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10824 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Review
"'What if my great grandmother is a witch?' thought Tolly."

Customer Reviews

Beautifully described vision of childhood in times past
I first read this book thirty-odd years ago and have just reread it to my son. It still has the same magical evocation of a childhood world and has lost nothing over time. It tells the story of a very lonely little boy called Tolly, who goes to spend the Christmas holidays with his great grandmother at Penny Soakey in a house called Green Noah, that has belonged to the Oldknowe family for many generations. Gradually he comes to learn more about the children that lived there in times past, and to form some very special friendships. Lucy Boston's delicate yet vivid descriptions are filled with the kind of detail that paints pictures in your mind. This is the perfect book to inspire a child struggling with descriptive writing themselves, or just as an antedote to 21st century life.

classic and flawless english ghost story
all the elements of the magic of childhood- ghosts, mysteries, Christmas,joy and fear; perfectly crafted story of a boy finding ghostly companions from long ago,with evocative and thrilling details on every page; no children's writer has ever bettered the pace and narrative of lucy boston in this flawless, timeless story of childhood

Play hide and seek with memories and imagination
This book is one of a series written by Lucy Boston; conjuring a truly magical world just this side of reality. My mother read this book aloud to me as a child, I have enjoyed re-reading it as an adult and my 10 year old daughter is hooked now too. The story introduces us to a wonderful house and the people connected with it...by the end they feel like friends we long to spend more time with. Lucy Boston brilliantly connects with the dreams of children (of all ages).