This fifth installment of Antonia Forest's ten-book series about the Marlow family - which alternates between school-stories like Autumn Term, and holiday adventure tales like The Marlows and the Traitor - follows directly upon the events of End of Term, as the younger Marlows, home from boarding school for the Christmas holidays, together with their friend and neighbor, Patrick Merrick, become involved in an intense game of make-believe.

Inspired by the Brontë siblings, and the imaginary kingdoms they dreamt up as children, Marlows and Merrick are soon deep into play-acting - becoming members of their own Gondal's Palladian Guard, beset by treachery on every side, and desperately struggling to save their threatened young king, and their country. But as the game begins to take on a life of its own, becoming almost an obsession for some of the players - to the point that other activities seem pale and unappealing by comparison - Nicola begins to wonder if things have gone too far...

Peter's Room - so named because the make-believe play occurs in the room above the shippen (cow stables), claimed at the beginning of the holiday by Peter - is an entertaining and intelligent novel for young readers, delivering a perceptive portrait of both the importance and limitations of fantasy in children's lives. Not since Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Changeling, one of my favorite books of all time, have I read so powerful a depiction of childhood make-believe - the kind of fantasy created by children themselves, rather than for them.

As someone moreover, who had a mild obsession with the Brontës as an adolescent, I found the inclusion of their work in the story completely charming, and regret that I didn't discover Peter's Room when I was younger. I was particularly impressed by the intelligent discussion of the famous siblings and their juvenilia, in the scene with Ginty, Nicola, and their older sister Karen. Somehow, I have trouble imagining such a serious literary discussion finding its way into many young adult novels today. Perhaps I'm being pessimistic. In any case, this was an immensely involving book, with scenes both beautiful and heartbreaking (I will not soon forget the ambiguous conclusion of the fox hunt, as seen by Nicola), and is one that can be appreciated, I believe, even by those who have not read the other Marlow books. ( )

I couldn't find a copy of the school story in between this Marlow book and the last so I eventually went ahead and read this. Not the most interesting of the series. The Marlows and Patrick go off into imaginary realms in the style of the young Brontes. The moral of the story is supposed to be that they're all too old to be playig make-believe which seems a curious message for an adult author to be putting across. ( )

This is the fifth book in Forest's series about the Marlow family.

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/nov04.html#forestpr ( )