The Magic Summer

Author

Elizabeth Enright

Four reasons to cheer!

Meet the Melendys! Mona, the eldest, is thirteen. She has decided to become an actress and can recite poetry at the drop of a hat. Rush is twelve and a bit mischievous. Miranda is ten and a half. She loves dancing and painting pictures. Oliver is the youngest. At six, he is...

Author	Philippa Pearce
ISBN	0140310223

David can't believe his luck when a worn wooden canoe mysteriously appears on the banks of the River Say behind his house. With summer stretching endlessly before him, it seems too good to be true.Soon there is another boy--Adam, the Minnow's rightful owner. Adam wants his boat back...but something...

Author	Eve Garnett
ISBN	0141317167

Eve Garnett's 1937 novel The Family from One End Street might well read a bit too obviously episodically for those readers who always do desire and crave a specific and mostly straightforward plot line in a novel, and is also and indeed (as well as naturally) an object, a book of its time, of late 1930s England...

Author	E. Nesbit
ISBN	0140367667

The well-meaning but accident-prone Bastable siblings are given another outing by Edith Nesbit, following on from the success of The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) and The Wouldbegoods (1900). We reacquaint ourselves with the 'anonymous' author Oswald, with all his familiar malapropisms...

Author

Hilary McKay

When Ruth Conroy decides to sponsor a child in Africa, she is unprepared for the difficulties involved in finding GBP10 a month. So she enlists the help of her sisters - Phoebe, Naomi and Rachel - who are only too eager to dream up hare-brained fund-raising schemes. Undisciplined baby-sitters, unhygienic...

Author	Sylvia Waugh
ISBN	0380729431

The Mennyms, a family of life-sized rag dolls, have always lived with danger, ever since their maker Kate Penshaw instilled in them an indomitable life force. That life force carried them through perils of many kinds and helped them survive the greatest danger of all -- the ever-present fear of discovery...

Author	Arthur Ransome
ISBN	0613789776

Apparently Evgenia, Mrs Ransome, didn't like this one at all. I really can't understand why: this is probably my favourite of the series, even though it lacks the Swallows. Perfectly paced, beautifully plotted, and back in the Lakes. What's not to like?

I have also always thought that this...

Author	Susan Cooper
ISBN	0689713274

Derek and his friends, living outside of London during World War II, find plenty of opportunities to explore bomb craters, collect shrapnel, and identify the fighter planes that fly overhead. When a bomb hits close to school, causing classes to be canceled, the boys are overjoyed: They can spend the...

Author	Jean Estoril
ISBN	0590425579

A sprained ankle at the start of term forces Drina to stop dancing for a month. However, this gives her the opportunity to play the role of Margaret in the play Dear Brutus for a short run in the West End.

Over summer, Drina and Rose are chosen to dance in The Nutcracker as 'Little Clara' with the Dominick...

Author	Anne Fine
ISBN	0440419166

Ian’s best friend, Stolly, is up on cloud nine. He’s in the hospital, unconscious, and hooked up to machines. The question Ian is trying to answer is: How did Stolly end up there?

In a way, Stolly’s always been on cloud nine, living life by his own rules and making those rules up as he goes...

Author	Eleanor Graham
ISBN	1903155193

I first read about this book in the Persephone catalog and was drawn to it because its story of junior housekeepers was similar to a children's book I loved, "The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner.

In "The Children Who Lived in a Barn," five children have to fend for themselves in 1930s...

Author	Michelle Magorian
ISBN	0749717564

This review was originally posted on [Between My Lines]A Cuckoo in the Nest by Michelle Magorian tells the story of a family in post war 1940s England. Ralph's family is full of tension, of family members who no longer know or understand each other and the generation gap has never seemed greater.

 



 
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Author	Michael Bond
ISBN	0618331417

For most people, “taking the air” is merely taking a simple stroll, but as all true Paddington admirers might expect, nothing is simple for Paddington. As usual, though, he retains his talent for turning his sticky moments into great triumph. Whether he’s attempting to tailor pants for grouchy...