Photo de l'auteur

L. M. Boston (1892–1990)

Auteur de The Children of Green Knowe

28+ oeuvres 5,003 utilisateurs 132 critiques 19 Favoris

A propos de l'auteur

Crédit image: Cambrideshire Agenda

Séries

Œuvres de L. M. Boston

The Children of Green Knowe (1954) 1,640 exemplaires
The Chimneys of Green Knowe (1958) 704 exemplaires
The River at Green Knowe (1959) 650 exemplaires
A Stranger at Green Knowe (1961) 596 exemplaires
An Enemy at Green Knowe (1964) 499 exemplaires
The Stones of Green Knowe (1976) 341 exemplaires
The Sea Egg (1967) 102 exemplaires
The Castle of Yew (1965) 97 exemplaires
The Guardians of the House (1974) 40 exemplaires
Nothing Said (1661) 39 exemplaires
Memory In a House (1973) 33 exemplaires
Curfew & Other Eerie Tales (2011) 31 exemplaires
Memories (1992) 30 exemplaires
The Fossil Snake (1975) 25 exemplaires
Yew Hall (1954) 22 exemplaires
Adventures at Green Knowe (1977) 12 exemplaires
Persephone (1969) 11 exemplaires
The House That Grew (1969) 6 exemplaires
Just Like That 4 exemplaires
Time Is Undone: Twenty-Five Poems (1977) 3 exemplaires
Many Coloured Glass 1 exemplaire
The Sea Frog 1 exemplaire

Oeuvres associées

Phantastic Book of Ghost Stories (1990) — Contributeur — 109 exemplaires
From Time to Time [2009 film] (2010) — Auteur, quelques éditions; Original story; Auteur, quelques éditions54 exemplaires
The House of the Nightmare and Other Eerie Tales (1967) — Contributeur; Auteur, quelques éditions47 exemplaires
A Century of Children's Ghost Stories: Tales of Dread and Delight (1995) — Contributeur — 27 exemplaires
Spooks, Spooks, Spooks (1966) — Contributeur — 13 exemplaires
The Haunted and the Haunters (1975) — Contributeur — 10 exemplaires
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2, October 1977 (1977) — Contributeur — 4 exemplaires
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 3, November 1977 (1971) — Contributeur — 3 exemplaires
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 4, December 1977 (1977) — Contributeur — 2 exemplaires
Young Winter's Tales 1 (1970) — Contributeur — 1 exemplaire

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This is such a charming, spooky, old-timey book. It is full of mysterious magic, but very little actual adventure or plot. Despite this I really enjoyed it and found the little boy and his grandmother a delightful pair.
 
Signalé
mslibrarynerd | 41 autres critiques | Jan 13, 2024 |
This was sweet, but it definitely could've been written better. There was very little action or plot, it was mostly the main character learning about his family history through stories and meeting the ghosts of his ancestors. The opportunity for an adventure scene only lasted about 10 pages or less, and I wished Green Knowe could've been built up more. It's literally what the novel and manor are named after.
 
Signalé
Dances_with_Words | 41 autres critiques | Jan 6, 2024 |
This is a hard one for me to review. I think if you read it as a child, it's going to have a really strong pull - it speaks to something about what it is to be a small, imaginative child, particularly a small, imaginative, only child, that I don't think I've ever seen represented in prose before. It's a favorite book of a close friend of mine, who read it when young, but I didn't read it for the first time until I was almost 30. It doesn't have the same pull for me - I don't really see how it could.

It's a relatively free-form story, almost a "sandbox" story in the way we talk about video games where characters can explore environments at will and at their own pace. Predominantly, it's about a young boy arriving to stay with his great-grandmother at Christmas, and exploring the house and grounds that have been in his family for over 400 years. He and the great-grandmother strike up a special relationship, and she tells him about a trio of his ancestors who lived as happy children in the same house. They died in the Great Plague, and soon, by playing with their toys and engaging in their games, the boy realizes that their ghosts are still there.

This is not a scary book, although there are one or two dark moments. The ghost children are kind presences, and the overall tone is a dreamy one that pushes gently toward whimsy. The protagonist, Tolly, is fascinated by everything he sees; his mind goes into overdrive as he imagines how his ghostly relatives were inspired by the same house, the same gardens, the same topiaries. He leaves sugar cubes for a legendary horse in the stable and pretends that a ceramic mouse is alive in his pocket. It isn't really a question whether or not he's dreaming, or whether or not the children are really there - it's all kind of a blur, without a lot of boundaries, and mostly we are simply aware that both Tolly and his grandmother are pleased by what they experience. There is a great love of the natural world, too; does it really matter if the squirrel and the mole and the hare that Tolly sees are the same ones those long-ago children named and tamed? No, it doesn't - everything is in its place and all's right with the world.

I'll be honest and say that I, personally, usually prefer a children's book with just a little bit more to it. I don't mind the "sandbox" idea of drifting without a really defined plot, but I think it would work better for me with some slightly more contrasting characters involved. The most enjoyable bits of the book, to me, are the rare ones where the gardener, Boggis, brings his somewhat earthy pragmatism into the "airy" world Tolly inhabits (and which his grandmother supports). There's a gentle conflict of personalities there that is very appealing without being abrasive in any way. Having one, more central character exhibit a stronger down-to-earth perspective, or even a dry sense of humor, would have punctured some of the "fairy tale"-ness that, for me, simply goes on too long without tonal variation. I can see how other people might like that undisturbed "golden glow," though.

Happily, I think the final quarter moves the story from merely good to very good, at least for me. The magic (or whatever you wish to call it) is at its height, and there's a sequence of genuine terror, offset by the joy of a Christmas Day that includes feeding all the animals who find their homes on the grounds. At that point I'm content to let the book be as dreamy and sweet as it wants to be without any further complaint: after all, it's Christmas!
… (plus d'informations)
½
 
Signalé
saroz | 41 autres critiques | Dec 28, 2023 |
Fascinating story. Kind of sad. I reread One and Only Ivan to compare. I was startled by the differences in zoos from the time of Green Knowe to the more modern Ivan where the zoo was a goal of a great place to live. I read this with my book group and we mostly enjoyed it. It was fun to learn about Lucy Boston and her inspiration for the book.
 
Signalé
njcur | 47 autres critiques | May 23, 2023 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
28
Aussi par
10
Membres
5,003
Popularité
#5,009
Évaluation
4.0
Critiques
132
ISBN
160
Langues
3
Favoris
19

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