The story begins as Maria Merryweather, orphaned at the age of 13, travels to the home of her Uncle Benjamin where she will now be living. She has never before visited and never before met Sir Benjamin, but she travels with two trusty companions who will also be staying on with her. As in all wonderful fairy tales the home turns out to be a castle, the horse is a beautiful unicorn, and the dog is a . . . but wait, you will have to read and find out for yourself!

I read this book aloud to my two oldest girls at the end of last year. It is recommended for ages 9 – 12 (though I loved it!), but my girls (then aged 4 and 6) really enjoyed the story. We laughed, held our breath in suspense, and just smiled at the pure loveliness of the tale. Elizabeth Goudge is a master at descriptions; the language is beautiful. The town in which they live is called Silverydew and everything is perfectly lovely. But yet there is something wrong. It is up to Maria to discover what it is (“an old man whispered . . . ‘Be you the one, my dear?’ And an old woman whispered: ‘Keep a stout heart, dearie, for maybe ’twill be you.’ “). In the meantime, Maria has wonderful adventures, falls in love, and learns about character.

I recommend this book as a read-aloud book. It is a story to be shared. My girls and I loved it – in fact, after we read it together my oldest daughter went on to read it a couple more times on her own. We have our favorite parts and it is fun to refer back to them together. I can’t wait to read more Elizabeth Goudge books!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 12:00 am

This post was written byLeah and is filed under children's books, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.