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Juliet's story
Juliet loved the folk stories Paddy Old used to tell. When he died nothing felt right anymore. So, Grandmamma takes Juliet on a journey and tells Juliet her own tales, but they're different from Paddy Old's. When they reach their destination Juliet is given the courage to start a story of her own.
126 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
William Trevor
186 books777 followersWilliam Trevor, KBE grew up in various provincial towns and attended a number of schools, graduating from Trinity College, in Dublin, with a degree in history. He first exercised his artistry as a sculptor, working as a teacher in Northern Ireland and then emigrated to England in search of work when the school went bankrupt. He could have returned to Ireland once he became a successful writer, he said, "but by then I had become a wanderer, and one way and another, I just stayed in England ... I hated leaving Ireland. I was very bitter at the time. But, had it not happened, I think I might never have written at all."
In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.
Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.
In 1958 Trevor published his first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, to little critical success. Two years later, he abandoned sculpting completely, feeling his work had become too abstract, and found a job writing copy for a London advertising agency. 'This was absurd,' he said. 'They would give me four lines or so to write and four or five days to write it in. It was so boring. But they had given me this typewriter to work on, so I just started writing stories. I sometimes think all the people who were missing in my sculpture gushed out into the stories.' He published several short stories, then his second and third novels, which both won the Hawthornden Prize (established in 1919 by Alice Warrender and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden, the Hawthornden Prize is one of the UK's oldest literary awards). A number of other prizes followed, and Trevor began working full-time as a writer in 1965.
Since then, Trevor has published nearly 40 novels, short story collections, plays, and collections of nonfiction. He has won three Whitbread Awards, a PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1977 Trevor was appointed an honorary (he holds Irish, not British, citizenship) Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to literature and in 2002 he was elevated to honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). Since he began writing, William Trevor regularly spends half the year in Italy or Switzerland, often visiting Ireland in the other half. He lived in Devon, in South West England, on an old mill surrounded by 40 acres of land.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 7, 2018
Charming. This grandmother would choose the toy maker too.
January 26, 2016
Juliet loves listening to stories and becomes depressed when her favorite storyteller, an old man in her small Irish village, dies. She finds that her best friend's interests are not the same as her own and something is going on with her parents. So when her grandmother shows up to take her on a holiday for her birthday, Juliet is mystified (she really wanted a puppy.) Juliet's grandmother is also a storyteller and a wise observer of life. This small book is a tribute to how we all find ourselves in stories and how we create our own memories and stories to share with others.
October 7, 2012
Charming and delightful. Juliet is a young girl living in County Tipperary who loves the stories told by the town's seanachie, Paddy Old, but when he does she becomes depressed. But then her grandmother (who has a way with a tale herself) takes her on holiday to France, and Juliet gets the experiences to tell her own story.
It's so lovely, I wonder why Trevor hasn't written anything else for children.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews