The Children of Green Knowe (Green Knowe, #1) in Never too Late to Read Classics

Dec 04, 2022 Manybooks rated it it was amazing

Shelves: childrens-literature, christmas-themed, book-reviews, families, favourites-read, ghost-stories, history, fairy-tales-fantasy, lucy-boston

Lucy M. Boston's 1954 middle grade story The Children of Green Knowe is the first of six novels set in and around the fictional Green Knowe, an ancient British manor house (based on and modelled after Boston's own home, on the Manor at Hemingford Grey, which was built in the 1130s and is supposed to be the oldest continually inhabited house in the United Kingdom). And while Green Knowe is of course a fictionalised Hemingford Grey Manor, the in the six novels by the author lovingly and evocativel Lucy M. Boston's 1954 middle grade story The Children of Green Knowe is the first of six novels set in and around the fictional Green Knowe, an ancient British manor house (based on and modelled after Boston's own home, on the Manor at Hemingford Grey, which was built in the 1130s and is supposed to be the oldest continually inhabited house in the United Kingdom). And while Green Knowe is of course a fictionalised Hemingford Grey Manor, the in the six novels by the author lovingly and evocatively depicted and described residence and surrounding gardens with their topiary animals actually do exist in their book-forms (and with the gardens also open to the public).

Now The Children of Green Knowe begins with seven year old Toseland (Tolly), whose father and stepmother are living abroad in Burma (now known as Myanmar), being sent to live with his great-grandmother (Mrs. Oldknow) at Green Knowe and arriving there from his English boarding school just before Christmas. But to get to Green Knowe, Tolly must travel across a rain-drenched English countryside, with the train labouring through many flooded fields. And yes, whilst reading of Tolly's railway journey to reach his great-grandmother's house in The Children of Green Knowe, I cannot help but be wondering if Lucy M. Boston might not have been an influence for J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels (as indeed, Harry Potter travelling by train to Hogwarts certainly does remind me of Tolly's trip to Green Knowe, and that when Tolly finally arrives at Green Knowe, the marooned by floods manor house must be reached by boat, just like Harry and his fellow students are taken by boat across the lake to Hogwarts upon disembarking from the train, so that I for one do think Lucy M. Boston's Green Knowe novels likely have affected and impacted J.K. Rowling, and that this does certainly make me smile with very much and warm appreciation).

And later in The Children of Green Knowe after the rain and the floods of the first chapters have turned to snow and there are delightfully ecstatic descriptions by Lucy M. Boston of Tolly (who was born and raised in Burma) relishing the snow, exploring the Green Knowe house and gardens, encountering, meeting up with Toby, Alexander and Linnet (the "ghost" children of the book title), talking shop with his kindred spirit great-grandmother, yes, everything textually featured in The Children of Green Knowe has been utterly and totally delightful for both my adult self and equally so for my inner child and as such a solid and glowing five stars rating (for both when I first read The Children of Green Knowe in 1998 and when I read it just now in order to finally be posting a review, and with me definitely being rather a bit upset that The Children of Green Knowe did not win the 1954 Carnegie Medal and was also seemingly not even considered as a nominee).

Finally, with regard to Lucy M. Boston's thematics for The Children if Green Knowe, on one level, The Children of Green Knowe obviously works as a nice and old very mildly spooky ghost story, with Toby, Alexander and Linnet representing the spirits of three children who lived at Green Knowe centuries before (and all died of the plague), but on the other other hand, perhaps Toby, Alexander and Linnet may actually just be the memories of them, living on in the stories told to Tolly by Mrs. Oldknow, by the great-grandmother. And while the book title of The Children of Green Knowe of course insinuates that it is the three spiritual children from the past alongside of the contemporary visiting child Tolly who represent the main protagonists, in my opinion, the true main character of The Children of Green Knowe is in fact the house itself. Because Green Knowe does not only provide a warm and cosy refuge from the snow and from whatever is unsafe outside in The Children of Green Knowe, it is in fact and actually the very walls of the Green Knowe and the objects contained therein that provide the links to the past and to the stories regarding Toby, Alexander and Linnet (and also of course to British history), providing both delight and education and a warm and wonderfully cozy yuletide tale of sweetness and Lucy M. Boston's wonderful descriptiveness. ...more

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Oct 28, 2013 Kate Thompson rated it it was amazing

I'm only sorry I'm just discovering this as an adult. Can't wait to read it to my son at Christmastime in a few years. ...more

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Dec 21, 2014 Laura (Reading is a Doing Word) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favourites, childrens, christmas

I had forgotten how much I love this book! Revisiting it as an adult it holds just as much charm as I remember from childhood. It's haunting, beautiful and nostalgic and a wonderful Christmas read. ...more

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