Independent Reading

I enjoyed a couple of books over the Independence Day bank holiday: The Mirror-Image Ghost by Catherine Storr, and The River at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston.

I only found out last night that Boston started writing her Green Knowe books when she was 60! Wow! There is hope for me yet! And until last night I thought all the books were about Tolly, the little boy who arrives to live with his grandmother in an old manor house by a river. It seems that the characters in each book vary somewhat.

In River, it's Ida, Oscar and Ping, who explore the water in a canoe. Like in the first book (The Children of Green Knowe, which is the only other in the series I've read) it is pretty plotless, and simply describes the children spending long, idyllic days, exploring and enjoying the countryside. I must say it's a rather magical and evocative read.

I'm keeping my eye out for other Green Knowe books, epsecially Stranger at Green Knowe, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1961 and once again features Ping!

The books are illustrated by Peter Boston, the son of Lucy Boston. In fact, Green Knowe is based on Lucy Boston's own home, Hemingford Grey Manor House, in Huntingdon, Cambrideshire. You can actually visit the house, by appointment. Alas, I did not know this when I was living in the UK!

The other book I read, The Mirror-Image Ghost, is a grimmer, much sadder tale about Lisa, a young girl adjusting to her new step father and siblings. The ghost of the title appears in a haunted mirror, and it is not so much a spirit as a figure from the past. I found the book quite creepy in places, especially near the end ...

Catherine Storr's best known novel is Marianne Dreams, another very spooky tale about a girl who dreams vividly about whatever she draws. The sequel, Mark and Marianne, is weirdly uncreepy though. It's like Marianne forgets totally all the strange things that happened to her in the first book, and goes on to lead a horribly mundane life. I wonder what Storr was thinking! Not that it's a bad book. I'm just baffled by how different it is, up to the point of being rather inconsistent. Maybe Storr just wanted to use the two characters in an ordinary teenage novel.

Comments

[Daphne]

Hi Marisa! Well, I don't have much of a social life, you see ;-) And I'm a fast reader. And I read everywhere and anywhere. It's true what you say abt making time though: One has to MAKE time. Even when I had a much busier social life, I would make sure that I spent X-hours a day reading ... well, at least 2 hrs, even if it meant waking up earlier than usual or sleeping later. I don't think this is too much of a chore if one loves to read in the first place!

[marisa]

hi daphne

i'm so envious with all the reading that you've done this past week! can i just find out how do you do it? how do you make the time to read? please offer us mere mortals some tips! ;)