DELICIOUS. Lots of humor and sweetness, and 100% likable characters.
Bought for $2 on Easter Sunday (4/17/2022) after reading three other novels by Ms. Goudge, being quite impressed, and not having finished a borrowed hard copy before having to return it. Same pagination. Lovely illustrations by Lauren Mills that were not in the hard copy by Puffin. Deliciously funny. Warmly instructive. Fabulous similes. Elements of the uncanny. Patented Elizabeth Goudge.
The children “borrow” a trap and pony who brings them to the home of an elderly gentlemen who “trusted never to set eyes on a child again” we learn has taught boys for 30 years before retiring 5 years ago, who we then learn is the children’s Uncle Ambrose, and then learn he was also the Vicar, and the children get to live in an uncanny vicarage. I wonder why he never married.
An example of the many similes: not content with mere description but put immediately to use: “Uncle Ambrose’s terrible bright glance seemed to reach right down into his head like a hook. It groped about there and came up with something.”
Or this one: “The two spurs of rock that contained it on each side were both the same shape, like the paws and forearms of a huge beast, and viewed from this side they were not menacing but protective, as though the beast held the garden in his arms.”
Lots of uncanny settings and personages and animals - bees, an owl named Hector and a monkey named Abednego for starters.
Robert: practical and bumptious; always considering what occupation might pay the most
Nan: brave and loving; reads people well
Timothy: imaginative and observant; a beautiful smile
Betsy: sweet and without guile
Chaos on Catnet:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5158367859
