The Children of Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren, 1947.
The story is told from the point-of-view of nine-year-old Lisa, a Swedish girl who has two older brothers, Karl and Bill. She and her family live on a farm that people call Middle Farm because it’s between two other farms, North Farm and South Farm. The three farms together are called “Noisy Village” because there are so many children around. The children who live on South Farm are Ulaf and his little sister Kirsten, who is only a year-and-a-half old, and North Farm has two girls, Britta and Anna, who are Lisa’s friends. Ulaf is friends with Karl and Bill. Sometimes, Lisa tries to play with her brothers, but they often tell her that she’s too little, and she sometimes thinks of the boys as a nuisance. Ulaf will sometimes play with girls, although Karl and Bill sometimes tease him about it, but there are also a limited number of children in the area to play with, so being willing to play with whoever is around is a good thing. Through the story, Lisa tells little stories and talks about the things that all of the children of Noisy Village do together.
When Lisa was younger, she used to share a room with her brothers before getting a room of her own. At night, Karl used to tell ghost stories, while Bill likes to talk about adventures. Lisa tells a story about how her brothers scared her one night with a ghost story and how they rigged up a trick to make it look like their room was haunted. Although Lisa sometimes misses the stories that her brothers used to tell her at night, she’s also relieved that she has a space of her own so she doesn’t have to put up with their pranks or them bossing her around all the time. Bill and Karl like their room because their window is close to Ulaf’s window, and the boys like to use the tree between their houses to go back and forth between the two rooms. The room that Lisa has now used to belong to her grandmother, before her grandmother moved in with an aunt. Lisa’s family remade the room for her as a present for her seventh birthday. Lisa’s room faces North Farm and Britta and Anna’s room, so the girls can send each other notes or signal to each other through their windows.
Some of the children at Noisy Village have pets, and Lisa explains how Ulaf got his dog, Skip, from the mean shoemaker, who was mistreating him. Britta and Anna don’t have any pets, but their grandfather lives with them, and the other children at Noisy Village like to visit him. Britta and Anna’s grandfather tells the children stories. One of his stories is about how he ran away from home as a boy. Inspired by the story, Lisa and Anna decide that they should have their own adventure, running away from home temporarily. However, they think that they have to run away during the night, and they both miss their opportunity because they fall asleep.
The children like to play games of pretend on their way home from school, which makes their mothers wonder what they’re doing and sometimes get them into trouble. Anna and Lisa accidentally get on people’s nerves one time, when they try too hard to follow their teacher’s advice about doing things to make people happy. They often end up doing the wrong things because they don’t know what other people really want or what people say they want doesn’t seem like enough. They finally succeed in making someone happy when they share some of their things with a girl from school who is sick.
The children’s adventures continue through the year. The people of Noisy Village have a charming, old-fashioned Christmas. At a Christmas party at a relative’s house, they play old-fashioned party games and tell stories. Lisa also describes a Swedish tradition of finding an almond in porridge, which is supposed to be a sign of marriage in the coming year. The children are allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. The boys scare the girls with some firecrackers, and Britta and Anna’s grandfather teaches the children the tradition of pouring melted lead into water to see what shapes it will form to predict what will happen in the new year. On Easter, the children paint eggs and make egg nog.
Eventually, school lets out for summer vacation. The children go swimming and catch crayfish during the summer. When they go fishing for crayfish, they camp out in the forest, near the lake, with Lisa’s father and the other men. The children make little huts to camp in. The boys try to scare the girls with stories about goblins. The children appreciate their idyllic lives in Noisy Village!
My Reaction
This book is a series of pleasant, gentle, slice-of-life stories about the children who live on a collection of small farms outside of a Swedish town, probably some time in the mid-20th century. Because there is little mention of any form of technology in countryside, it could set almost be any time in history from the 19th century to the time when it was written in the 1940s. The one thing that identified it as the 20th century for me is when they mentioned “turning on lights” in the house rather than lighting lamps. Even into the mid-20th century, not all farm houses had electricity, but it seems that these do. Other than that, these children seem to be living an idyllic, “unplugged” life in the countryside that people who are into cottagecore would aspire to! I think it would be a nice book to read children at bedtime because it’s very gentle.
I enjoyed reading about the games that the children play with each other and with their families. The children like playing games of pretend that seem to be inspired by books they’ve read. The girls play at being princesses, while the boys play at being Indians, probably American Indians (Native Americans) because one of young Bill’s ambitions is to be an Indian Chief when he grows up. We don’t really encourage playing at being “Indians” today in 21st century America because that can devolve into caricatures of someone else’s racial group (cowboys are still fair game because that’s a profession, not an ethnicity), but that sort of thing was pretty common in the mid-20th century, even outside of the United States. I’ve read British books from around the same time period that also refer to children playing at being American Indians, so it was something that seems to have captured children’s imaginations, even internationally. The children also pretend that they’re marooned or shipwrecked on a rock at one point, something else that often appears in children’s literature and is based on older books.
I particularly enjoyed some of the descriptions of Swedish holiday traditions through the year. Some of them are very similar to traditions in the United States and Britain around this time and even earlier, like in the 19th century. They have a charming Christmas with friends and family and a party with old-fashioned parlor games. I’ve heard of the tradition of finding an almond in porridge or pudding before, but I think that’s more common in Scandinavian countries than in the United States. In Britain, there are traditions associated with finding things (like a coin or a bean) in porridge or pudding, but it’s not really common in the US. Another thing that stood out to me was that Lisa said they made egg nog at Easter. In the US, people typically have egg nog at Christmas, but when I thought about it, it does make sense for Easter because of the association with eggs.
One other thing that stood out to me in the book was the little huts that the children make when they’re camping out by the lake. It reminded me of the huts that children in The Secret Summer (Baked Beans for Breakfast) made.
A family builds a strong little house in the countryside, dreaming of their descendants living in her. The little house is happy in the countryside, watching the changing seasons as the years come and go.
Over time, things begin to change, though. Other farms are built around the little house, but then, a big road is built, and the little farms gradually give way to suburbs.
Eventually, the houses around the little house turn into bigger houses and apartment buildings. As time goes on, the little house is no longer in the countryside or even the edge of the city, but it’s actually engulfed by the city itself.
The city becomes more and more crowded with taller and taller apartment buildings, more roads and trains, and crowds of peoples. The little house stands empty and becomes run-down. She can hardly see the sky and can’t feel the changing of the seasons the way she used to because there isn’t much nature around her to sense changing.
Fortunately, the little house is rescued from this terrible situation. One day, the great-great-granddaughter of the man who built the house spots the little house in the city and recognizes it as the one her family owned. When she and her husband look into it, they verify that this is her family’s old house, and they decide that they want to move it to the countryside, like when her family lived there.
Because the little house was built so strongly, they’re able to move it intact to the countryside. The little house is happy to once again live in the countryside with the family who always loved her!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
This vintage picture book is about the nature of change. Growing cities do expand into the countryside around them, so a house that was once outside of the city is gradually touched by and then engulfed by the nearby city as it expands. Readers get the feelings of the house as the world around her changes. At first, she’s a little intrigued by the city and isn’t sure if she likes it or not, but as the city becomes overcrowded, the house is neglected, and she can no longer sense the seasons, she decides that she doesn’t like it. When things change for the house again, she is relieved.
I remember this story from when I was a kid, and I remember feeling sad when the poor house was run-down and neglected in the city, surrounded by the towering apartment buildings. However, the book has a good ending. Houses can be moved, and the family that once owned this house remembers it and rescues it from the city, moving it to the countryside, where they all feel more at home. Things change, but sometimes, they change for the better. The house can’t move itself when it isn’t happy, but the family gives it the help and attention it needs.
When I reread this book as an adult, it suddenly occurred to me that this book was originally published during WWII, when the world was changing in some very scary ways. I think a book like this might have been reassuring to children of that time. Life is full of changes, but sometimes, things can change for the better again.
The Whispering Cloth: A Refugee’s Story written by Pegi Deitz Shea, illustrated by Anita Riggio, and stitched by You Yang, 1995.
Mai and her family are Hmong refugees from Laos, living in the refugee camp of Ban Vinai in Thailand. Some of her relatives have gone to the United States, but Mai and her grandmother are still waiting in the refugee camp. Mai’s parents are dead, and Mai doesn’t really remember her family’s life in Laos. Almost as far back as she can remember, she’s always lived in the refugee camp. She only has vague memories of her parents’ deaths and how she and her grandmother fled to the refugee camp.
Mai’s grandmother teaches her how to do embroidery, and she begins helping her grandmother make pa’ndau, a kind of tapestry that tells a story. Together, she and her grandmother pa’ndau to sell to traders for money. They hope to use the money to get out of the refugee camp and join their relatives in the United States.
Their pa’ndau tapestries have beautiful floral borders and images that tell a story. Mai asks her grandmother if she can do one all by herself and if he grandmother will tell her a story she could use. Her grandmother says that she’ll be ready to do a pa’ndau of her own when she has a story of her own to tell.
As Mai thinks about how much she misses her parents, she realizes that she does have a story to tell in her own pa’ndau. She begins embroidering a pa’ndau that tells the story of her parents’ deaths and how her grandmother carried her away in a basket, fleeing as soldiers shot at them. She embroiders their arrival at the refugee camp, and the people and things she sees there.
When she asks her grandmother how much money they can get for her pa’ndau, she says that they cannot sell it because it isn’t finished yet. At first, Mai thinks that there isn’t anything more to tell because they’re still living in the camp, and she hasn’t experienced life beyond it. Then, she realizes that she can embroider the life she hopes to have when they finally join her cousins, based on the things they’ve told her in their letters.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
The foreword to the story explains that the Hmong people of Laos were driven out by the Lao Communist government, and many of them were killed before they had a chance to leave. The government drove them out because they sided with the Americans fighting in Laos and Vietnam. Many people, like Mai’s family, found refuge in refugee camps like Ban Vinai, waiting until they could find another country willing to take them on a permanent basis. However, at the time this story was published in 1995, the Ban Vinai camp was set to close. The refugees there were set to be either transferred to different refugee camps or sent back to Laos, to face whatever the government there had in store for them. Understandably, many of them didn’t want to be sent back to the country they had escaped from. This article explains more about the generation of children who, like Mai, grew up in the refugee camp, disconnected from the lives their parents knew in Laos, and with ambitions to go to other places, like the United States, to start new lives.
Although this is a picture book, there are violent themes of war in the story, so I wouldn’t recommend it for very young children. The pictures in the book are beautiful, an unusual combination of paintings and actual embroidery. The artist who did the embroidery, bringing Mai’s tapestry to life, was also a refugee in camps in Thailand before coming to the United States in 1992.
I thought this was an interesting way to introduce readers to part of the history of the Hmong people and the fallout of the Vietnam War through a traditional Hmong artform/craft that tells stories in a unique way.
The Travels of Ching written and illustrated by Robert Bright, 1943.
A dollmaker in China makes a little doll named Ching. Ching is a high-quality, handmade doll, and the dollmaker sells him to a toy shop.
Ching sits in the window of the toy shop for a long time, waiting for someone who wants him. There is a little girl who sees him in the shop, and she wants him badly, but all the toys in the shop are expensive, and she can’t afford him.
One day, a wealthy tea merchant buys Ching, but he doesn’t want Ching himself. He plans to send Ching to someone else overseas. Ching begins a long journey by donkey, boat, and steamship to America. When he gets to America, he travels even further by train, eventually arriving at the apartment of a wealthy girl.
However, the wealthy girl doesn’t really want Ching. She already has many dolls, and she doesn’t find Ching interesting. She is careless with him, and one day, he falls off the balcony of the apartment and lies outside, forgotten.
One day, an old man finds Ching and brings him inside, but he doesn’t really want Ching, either. He gives Ching to his cook, but she doesn’t really want him, so she throws him in the trash, and Ching ends up in a junk yard.
Fortunately, Ching’s story doesn’t end there. A man who works for a Chinese laundry happens to pass the junk yard and spots Ching. Although Ching is dirty from his time outside, the Chinese man recognizes Ching’s quality and is pleased that the junk yard owner is selling him cheaply. The man buys Ching and cleans him up because he knows someone who will really appreciate him.
Thus, Ching is sent on another long journey … back to the person who always wanted him the most.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
This is a vintage children’s book, and the illustrations of the Chinese people have the slits for eyes that are considered stereotypical now. However, there doesn’t seem to be any disrespect meant by the story. The basic theme of the story can be summed up by the saying, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.”
Ching travels a great distance from China to the United States, passing through the hands of various people along the way, and at times, he’s actually given or thrown away because the people who have him don’t really want him. There’s nothing wrong with Ching. He was always a high-quality doll, which is how he survived his time outside in the elements. It’s just that the people who have him don’t really appreciate him. Fortunately, there are people who recognize his quality, and there is one person who definitely wants him. It’s a happy ending when Ching finds his way back to her. All he really needed was for someone to want him, and in the end, he is happy to be with the person who does want him.
What To Do About Alice? by Barbara Kerley, illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham, 2008.
Theodore Roosevelt had done many things in his life, from herding cattle to hunting grizzly bears, but one thing he could never seem to do was manage his daughter, Alice. From early childhood, Alice was a lively girl, always having things she wanted to do and places to go. She called it, “eating up the world.”
Alice’s mother died when she was a baby, only two days after she was born. The loss was very difficult for her father, and people felt sorry for Alice. However, since Alice had no memories of her mother, she didn’t feel the loss so much, and she didn’t want people to pity her. Eventually, her father remarried, and Alice had half-siblings. Because of her father’s political career, the family traveled between New York and Washington, DC. Alice enjoyed this lifestyle and the experiences she had in different places where they lived.
For the most part, Alice’s childhood busy and full of fascinating experiences, but she did have problems as well. She went through a period where she had to wear braces on her legs because they weren’t growing properly. (The book doesn’t explain why she had this condition, partly because the exact cause is unknown. The common belief was that she might have had a mild form of polio, but that isn’t definite.) The braces worked, and eventually, she no longer had to wear them. Her father encouraged her to engage in physical activities and learn to ride a bicycle because he didn’t want her previous condition to make her overly cautious.
It turned out that there was little need to worry about that. Alice was a wild child! She would run off to explore the cities where she lived, and she once joined an all-boys club, sneaking them in disguised as girls! Concerned that Alice was getting too wild and becoming a bit of a “tomboy” (a girl who acts like a boy and likes things boys like – I don’t think this term is used as much anymore because the modern view is more that people shouldn’t allow themselves to confine their interests based on gender stereotypes).
Theodore Roosevelt considered sending Alice to boarding school to give her some discipline and teach her more ladylike habits, but the idea upset Alice so much that he eventually decided to let her continue her education at home. Alice used the books in her father’s library to study seriously. She read books by famous authors and studied subjects like Greek, geology, and astronomy, discussing them with her father.
When Alice was seventeen years old, Theodore Roosevelt was elected President of the United States. Alice and her half-siblings thrilled people with their wild behavior and exotic pets. (The book mentions Alice’s pet snake, Emily Spinach.) However, Alice also developed a serious interest in politics. She became a goodwill ambassador and took part in public projects, like the Buffalo Exposition. Her antics often became the subject of newspaper reports and society gossip. It earned her some criticism, but because she was such a personable young woman, she was also a social success. She gained the nickname of “Princess Alice.”
Eventually, Alice married a congressman named Nicholas Longworth. She continued to act as an advisor to her father and take part in diplomatic events. The entire time, she was known as an irrepressible personality!
My Reaction
I enjoyed the book for its fun look at a colorful character from American history, although it was on the cartoonish side. In multiple pictures, she is shown holding a giant spoon. It confused me a little at first, and then, I realized that it was a reference to her saying about “eating up the world.”
The Roosevelts were a colorful family in general. Teddy Roosevelt encouraged his children (and nieces and nephews, as explained in the book about Alice’s cousin, Eleanor) to be brave and daring, and Alice and her half-siblings were known for their wild stunts and the small zoo of bizarre animals that members of the family kept as pets. The book shows Alice and her half-siblings sliding down the stairs in the White House on serving trays, something that they did in real life, although it doesn’t explain in the text that’s what they were doing.
Alice was both a scandalous figure and an admired person in her time, and I thought the book did a good job showing that. She was an eccentric person who often trampled on social conventions, but she was also a highly social person and pleasant to be around, so she tended to shine in social and diplomatic situations.
Her life wasn’t always as happy and cheerful as the story shows. She had tensions with both her father and stepmother while she was growing up, and her marriage wasn’t especially happy. There were times when she opposed her husband politically, and she is also known to have had affairs with other men. Her daughter was probably the result of one of these affairs. Of course, these darker subjects aren’t exactly suitable for a children’s picture book. The book gives enough of an indication of tensions within her family by showing her father’s reactions to her various antics and the way she threw fits to convince her father not to send her to a traditional school. Overall, the book is a fun introduction to the life of a fascinating but complex person.
More Than Anything Else by Marie Bradby, pictures by Chris K. Soentpiet, 1995.
Young Booker lives with his family in a little cabin, and every morning, before the sun is up, he goes to work with his father and brother. They work at the saltworks, shoveling salt into barrels, and it’s hard, tiring work.
There is something on young Booker’s mind, though. More than anything else, he wants to learn how to read. One evening, he sees a black man reading aloud from a newspaper to a group of listeners, and he wishes that he could read like that himself. It inspires him that the man is black, like himself, showing that reading isn’t just something for white people.
Booker tells his mother how badly he wants to learn to read. His mother can’t read herself, but somehow, she manages to find a book for him to study. Booker tries to figure out how to read by studying the letters in the book, but he just can’t figure out it by himself.
Then, Booker thinks of someone who could help him: the man who was reading the newspaper. Before Booker can learn to read, he needs some help from someone who already knows.
My Reaction
The boy in the story is a young Booker T. Washington. The book doesn’t refer to him by his full name in the story because it’s told from his perspective and because, when he was young, he was never referred to by a surname and was only known as Booker. We only get his first name, but the book summary makes it clear that it is Booker T. Washington, the famous African American educator, who lived from 1856 to 1915 and was the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal School, which later became Tuskegee University. He was born into slavery, but he was freed as a child during the Civil War.
I’m not sure whether the description of how he learned to read from this story actually happened in real life. From what I’ve read, he learned to read at a school managed by the Freedmen’s Bureau. Another account that I read said that he wanted to learn to read after seeing white children going to school and that his mother got him a book that taught him basic reading and writing. I don’t know whether he was ever inspired by seeing a black man reading a newspaper, but I couldn’t find anything about it. Because I’ve read some differing accounts, I think that either Booker’s exact inspiration for learning to read is unknown or that there were multiple influences in his early education, with different people putting emphasis on different aspects.
I liked the story, although it doesn’t explain more about Booker T. Washington’s life. I think it would have been more educational if it explained to readers what he did when he grew up, showing how he became a teacher and influenced others’ lives and education. It’s a little disappointing that kids can read the story as it is without really understanding who Booker T. Washington was and what he did. A section of historical information in the back of the book would have helped add context to the story. The story in the book simply ends at the point where Booker learns to write his own name, but I think that showing how this simple accomplishment in basic reading and writing started him on a path to greater accomplishments.
Mooncakes by Loretta Seto, illustrated by Renne Benoit, 2013.
A young girl is excited because tonight is special, and she will be allowed to stay up late and eat mooncakes with her parents for the Chinese Moon Festival. They decorate with paper lanterns, and they spend the evening looking at the night sky from their backyard.
Her parents, called Mama and Baba, tell her stories from Chinese legends. The book includes the stories they tell, like the story of Chang-E (who was a woman who escaped from her cruel husband with the elixir of life and now lives in the Jade Palace on the moon), the story of the woodcutter Wu-Gang (who chops wood forever on the moon in his quest for eternal life), and the story of the Jade Rabbit (who lives on the moon with three magicians and brings food to people who need it).
As they tell stories, the girl and her parents drink tea and eat mooncakes. The girl tries to look for the characters that they talk about on the moon until it’s time for bed.
There’s an Author’s Note in the back of the book that explains a little more about the Chinese Moon Festival. It’s a harvest festival that takes place in the eighth month of the lunar calendar. It also honors family, and even family members who can’t be together will remember that the rest of their family is looking at the same moon, no matter where they are.
My Reaction
I know that I’m presenting this story out of season because the Chinese Moon Festival is in autumn. Because it’s based on the lunar calendar, it sometimes happens in September and sometimes in October. I did my review at this time of year because it fit best with my blog’s schedule.
I enjoyed experiencing this lovely festival through the eyes of a young girl, having a gentle celebration with her parents. It’s an idyllic evening of cozy story-telling, and I really enjoyed the three folktales introduced in the book! I enjoy folk tales from different countries, and I liked these brief stories. I think this book would make a good beginning introduction to Chinese folklore for young children.
The focus of the story and the pictures in the book alternate between the stories the parents tell and the girl and her parents as they enjoy their evening together. I think this would make a great bedtime story.
Kate Sutton and her sister, Alicia, live in the household of Princess Elizabeth in the year 1558. Alicia hates the Hatfield palace because it’s dreary and poorly maintained, apparently on purpose because Queen Mary Tudor resents Princess Elizabeth and wants her and her household to be uncomfortable. Kate and Alicia are maids in the household, and Alicia decides to write a complaining letter to Queen Mary about the condition of the house. Alicia thinks of herself at trying to help Princess Elizabeth by explaining how bad the conditions there are, but her letter gets heated and insulting toward the queen. Alicia is accustomed to getting away with things and with people not being angry with her because she’s pretty. However, Kate has to be the one with a brain, and she sees immediately that Alicia’s letter is bound to cause trouble.
When Princess Elizabeth receives a reply to Alicia’s letter, she summons the sisters to see her. Queen Mary is very direct in her letter about what she thinks of Alicia Sutton’s letter, but she ultimately blames Kate for it because Alicia is a favorite of hers and Kate reminds her too much of her father, who she never liked. She believes that Alicia is only a sweet innocent and that Kate is a corrupting influence, which is unfair. Queen Mary has decided to separate the sisters, taking Alicia into her own household and sending Kate to Sir Geoffrey Heron at his house, Elvenwood Hall, in Darbyshire. The queen wants Kate to stay at Elvenwood Hall and out of her sight or hearing from now on. Kate has no idea where Elvenwood Hall is, other than in Darbyshire, and she doesn’t know Sir Geoffrey Hall. Although Alicia is initially pleased that the queen doesn’t blame her, she becomes remorseful when she realizes that Kate is taking the blame for the letter, when she knew nothing about it. She offers to write to the queen again and confess everything, taking full responsibility for the letter, but Princess Elizabeth, Roger, and Kate herself all tell her not to. The queen’s mind is made up, and another of Alicia’s letters might make it worse.
Princess Elizabeth asks her tutor, Roger, if she knows anything about Sir Geoffrey Heron, and he says that he’s heard of him. The house, Elvenwood Hall, has another name, Perilous Gard. The word “gard” indicates that the place was once a castle, but Roger knows that the house has been rebuilt with old parts cleared away. The other part of the name “perilous”, indicates that there is a superstitious element to the place, like places rumored to be inhabited by fairy folk or associated with pagan religion. One of his old pupils told him some stories about the place, but Roger would rather not repeat them. The accounts that Roger has heard of Sir Geoffrey say that he is an honorable man, so he thinks that Kate will be safe in his household.
Other than that, Kate has little idea of what to expect from Elvenwood Hall. She doesn’t think that Alicia’s dire fears that Kate will be thrown into a dungeon are true. The queen wants her out of her sight, and that’s why she’s sending her to a relatively remote area where she won’t have to deal with her and putting her under the supervision of a supporter of hers, who is supposed to keep her out of trouble. Kate isn’t actually under arrest.
The journey to Elvenwood Hall is rough. On the way, the traveling party meets an old harper, Randal, who Sir Geoffrey says is a little addled since he suffered from a serious illness. When they tell the harper that Kate is coming to stay at Elvenwood, Randal asks if she might be lost like the last girl. Sir Geoffrey seems upset about what Randal says and hurries Randal away to get some food. Then, Kate hears a laugh and sees a strange woman looking at them from the hill. Then, her horse acts up, and when Kate looks again, the woman is gone.
When Kate sees Elvenwood Hall, it doesn’t seem to be very old due to the recent rebuilding, and its interior is luxurious, compared to the house where Princess Elizabeth is living. It is surrounded by ancient stone walls and battlements, and the older parts of the house are more castle-like and crumbling. Sir Geoffrey is still in the process of renovating the castle and turning it into a luxurious manor. The elderly Dorothy, former nurse to Sir Geoffrey’s wife, is the manor’s housekeeper, and Master John is the estate’s steward. Master John seems cold and unfriendly, but he is in charge whenever Sir Geoffrey is away.
Much to Kate’s dismay, Sir Geoffrey will be leaving Kate under Master John’s supervision while he makes a trip to Norfolk. Kate gets the impression that Sir Geoffrey doesn’t like being at Elvenwood, in spite of its renovations, but under the queen’s orders, Kate is required to stay at Elvenwood and not to travel away from it. Sir Geoffrey also tells her that the queen will not allow her to write to anyone or communicate with anyone outside of Elvenwood without Sir Geoffrey’s permission, of in his absence, Master John’s permission. Sir Geoffrey says that he will not be back at Elvenwood until All Saints’ Day, so Kate will be under Master John’s authority for months.
Elvenwood used to belong to Sir Geoffrey’s wife’s family, the Wardens, and old Dorothy doesn’t like Sir Geoffrey or any of the Heron family. Dorothy says that Sir Geoffrey’s brother, Christopher Heron, was responsible for the death of Sir Geoffrey’s daughter, that he had admitted it, and that Sir Geoffrey never punished him for it. Sir Geoffrey knows that Dorothy has been gossiping with Kate, but he is not upset with Kate for it. He also doesn’t offer any further explanations about what Dorothy said before he leaves on his trip to Norfolk.
Elvenwood Hall is pretty comfortable and nobody there mistreats Kate, but she is often lonely because the place is isolated. The farthest Kate is allowed to go from Elvenwood Hall is to the nearby village, but there isn’t much there. When Kate visits the village, people stare at her and act like they’re afraid of her. Even the village priest makes the sign of the cross at her, as if he thinks that she is something evil. Mostly, Kate has Dorothy as her companion.
Then, one day, she notices a pair of visitors, and Dorothy says that they are pilgrims, coming to visit the holy well on the grounds. Kate knows that some people believe that holy wells have the power to heal or make people more beautiful. Dorothy says that the holy well in the cave here will take away sorrow and pain, if a visitor offers a gift in exchange. The gift is for “those who rule over the well”, who Dorothy says were in this land long before saints and Christianity, but she hesitates to say more about it. She says that Kate can ask Master John, if she wants to know.
When Kate decides to take a look at the well herself, Christopher Heron finds her, grabs her, and hauls her away from it. Kate is startled, and he explains that he thought that she would fall in and be lost in the chasm under the rocks there. Kate thinks that’s silly because the well has a wall around it, but Christopher explains that’s what happened to Sir Geoffrey’s daughter, Cecily. At least, that’s what Christopher thinks happens to her.
He explains that Cecily was a little girl and that her mother was dead when he and his brother came to live at Elvenwood. One day, Sir Geoffrey left on one of his trips, and Christopher was responsible for Cecily. Cecily liked playing a kind of hide-and-seek game, but that day, Christopher found her antics irritating. He left her with Master John and went for walk to visit the well. However, he spotted Cecily following him, so he made a mock wish at the well that Cecily, being a spoiled child, would be in the care of someone else. And, that was the last time he saw Cecily. He supposes that she must have fallen when he wasn’t looking, although he didn’t actually see her fall, and they never found her body. They only found one of her shoes on the path. Christopher feels horribly guilty about losing Cecily, and he knows how her loss has hurt his brother, who has been the only person who loved and cared of him since his mother died giving birth to him. For him to lose Cecily when Geoffrey trusted him to take care of her was terrible, and he knows that his brother has not looked at him in the same way since. As a penance, Christopher has been living in the old leper’s hut on the estate whenever his brother is not in residence.
It’s sad, but Kate thinks that Christopher has been spending too much time feeling sorry for himself. She thinks it would be more sensible if he made a confession to the local priest to clear his conscience rather than brooding over what he could have done or should have done. Christopher says that it’s none of her business what he does, and he will give himself whatever penance he thinks is fitting. Kate thinks that Christopher is indulging in pride and self-pity over what was merely an accident.
When Kate helps to rescue a local boy from a flooded river, his grateful mother talks to her about the guardians of the well, insisting that it’s really the fairy folk. She says that they live in a cave under the hill, that the strange woman Kate saw on the hill is their queen, and that they sometimes steal away children to be their slaves … or worse. She and others in the village think that’s what really happened to little Cecily and that the people at the castle know it, too. She thinks they’re purposely letting Christopher blame himself so that Sir Geoffrey won’t learn that his daughter is really alive and a captive of the fairies.
It does seem to Kate that everyone but the Herons genuinely believes in the fairies and that’s what Dorothy was talking about when she was talking about the guardians of the well being older than the saints. She reflects that Roger believed that the stories about fairies are just references to pagan gods and religious practices, and she starts to wonder if the people of Elvenwood, or the Perilous Gard, are secretly practicing pagan rituals with their traditions about the well. If the fairies are only superstition and the remnants of old religion, though, who was the mysterious woman who was watching Kate’s arrival? Could that have actually been a real fairy queen?
Kate tries to discuss it with Christopher, but he’s convinced that he knows what must have happened to Cecily. Then, they have an encounter with Randal, who tells them that the fairies have stolen away his wits. He knows he’s a bit addled and missing some memories, but he insists that the fairies did it to him because they couldn’t use a musician as one of their sacrifices, so they sacrificed his wits instead. Then, he claims that he has seen a little golden-haired girl dancing with the fairies and that she gave him her slipper to show to someone. To their astonishment, Randal produces a little girl’s slipper that matches the one Cecily lost on the path the day she disappeared! This slipper is much more worn than the other one, indicating that the girl who wore it continued to wear it after she disappeared.
Realizing that Cecily is still alive, Christopher wants to make a thorough search of the chasm beneath the well, but Kate urges caution. Whatever is going on at the well and whatever happened to Cecily, she’s sure that the people at the castle know about it, like the woman from the village said. If they don’t want to find and rescue Cecily themselves, it’s because they have something to hide. Sir Geoffrey’s wife seemed eager to leave this place, where Kate is now trapped by the queen’s orders, after her marriage, and Sir Geoffrey only returned here after she was dead, apparently unaware of the dark things that have happened here and still may be happening. Whatever is going on, the people of Perilous Gard are involved, and Kate and Christopher cannot expect any help from anyone in the castle.
People leave coins and gold as gifts to the well when they ask it for something, and Christopher wonders if that could be the secret source of money for the estate that has funded all the luxurious renovations. Master John could be secretly taking all of the offerings the pilgrims leave. On the other hand, the name of the family that once owned this estate was “Warden”, a name that indicates the caretaker for something. Were they once the caretakers of the well, of a remaining cult of pagans that still practices the old religion and its rituals … or perhaps of actual fairies? What was Sir Geoffrey’s wife afraid of in her old family home, and where is little Cecily now? Was she taken as a hostage to ensure that Sir Geoffrey wouldn’t interfere with whatever the people at the castle are doing … or as a potential sacrifice to fairies or pagan gods? They reflect that the story of Tam Lin, about a lover who rescued her beloved from the fairies, was set on All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween). Cecily’s father plans to return on All Saint’s Day, the day after All Hallow’s Eve (November 1). Kate and Christopher need to get word to Sir Geoffrey or rescue Cecily themselves before it’s too late!
This is a Newbery Honor Book. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction and Some Spoilers
This book was fascinating and suspenseful! From the beginning, I wasn’t really sure whether or not this was a fantasy story. It turns out that it’s what I call pseudo-fantasy. It has all the trapping of fantasy, and there are points when it seems like something supernatural might be happening. However, it seems that, in the end, the “fairies” are humans practicing pagan rituals and who have convinced themselves that they are somehow different from the other humans who live above ground, out of the caves. There may be things that indicate that they might be more than that, but overall, Kate believes from the very beginning, that they are merely humans with strange and dangerous practices. As she puts it, “There were never any heathen gods, only heathen people who believed in them.”
Ancient Religion and Folklore
In their attempts to free Cecily, Christopher and Kate become the captives of the “fairies”, and Christopher is in danger of being used as one of their sacrifices. During their captivity, Kate gets to see some of their practices, and she realizes that they control people through things they give them to drink that affect their minds, and she learns what she needs to know about their rituals and beliefs to thwart their plans. In real life, there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge of pre-Christian religion in Britain because the practitioners didn’t leave written records. Mostly, what know about them is based on archaeology and accounts left by the Romans, which may not be entirely accurate. In the story, the “fairies'” beliefs are based around the idea of sacrifices, energy from humans and the earth, pieces of folklore, and probably the use of some kind of psychedelics. The most interesting and revealing part of their beliefs comes when Kate discusses the need for sacrifice with the fairy queen, and the two of them face off with their respective religious beliefs. During their discussion, they compare their beliefs on the subject of God/gods, power, and the purpose of sacrifice.
The fairy queen says that sacrifice is necessary to take the power from a human life and put it into the land and people through to keep them alive. In spite of her group’s isolation and life in the caves, she seems to understand some of the basics of Christianity, and she says that Kate should understand the notion of sacrifice because Christianity is built around one particular sacrifice. The fairy queen compares Christ’s sacrifice to the sacrifices that her cult holds – one person must give their life for the sake of the others as a way of transferring their life energy. Kate is a Christian, and she knows this description of Christ’s sacrifice isn’t completely accurate, but she tries to convince the queen that Christ’s sacrifice makes other sacrifices unnecessary. She says, since Christ gave Himself for the sake of humanity, He has guaranteed humanity’s safety so no others need to pay the price He paid. The queen argues that Christ’s sacrifice happened a long time ago, that His life energy has passed, and their cult holds a sacrifice on All Hallow’s Eve every seven years to renew the energy. Kate argues that Christ was special as the son of God, the only God that truly exists, and that His energy never dies, that it has transferred to living humans. She uses the story of Christopher’s namesake, St. Christopher, as an example of Christ’s power extending to humans. Unfortunately, the queen takes that to mean that Christopher holds some of Christ’s power in him, so sacrificing Christopher would not only give them the power of his life force but the power of Christ as well. Kate realizes that she can’t persuade the fairy queen or make her understand because the queen will just take everything she says and try to fit it into her views and what she has already decided needs to be done.
The philosophical and theological discussion between the two of them was fascinating, but the only way Kate can disrupt the sacrifice and save Christopher is to use the power of stories these people already believe. Kate never cared much for folk tales and ballads before, but she knows that the queen believes in the legend of Tam Lin and that the method the heroine from that story is the only one that can save a sacrifice like Christopher. When Kate finds out that the queen completely believes in that story, she realizes that she has to use the heroine’s solution from the story to rescue Christopher.
This is a point where the actual ritual differs from the magic in the story of Tam Lin. In the story of Tam Lin, he is physically changed into various forms that are frightening or difficult to hold onto, but his lover has to keep hold of him for him to be released from the magic. In this story, Christopher is not actually transformed into anything. It’s more psychological. The fairies believe that people who are going to be sacrificed need to give themselves to the sacrifice willingly, so they use psychological manipulation to convince Christopher that he has nothing to live for, playing on his feelings of guilt for not protecting his niece better and other traumatic pieces of his past, like his mother dying while giving birth to him and his father resenting him because of it. To hold on to him, like the heroine in the story, Kate has to speak up and convince him that the fairies are lying to him and that he does have things to live for. She needs to hold on to his mind and get him to assert his own will to survive while the fairies try to convince him that the only purpose he has left is to offer himself for sacrifice. “Holding on” in this case means holding on to one’s sense of self and one’s purpose, even in the face of doubts, insecurities, personal trauma, and the toxic influence or manipulation of other people.
Personal Growth
In her arguments with Christopher to get him to see that his life is worth living, Kate also confronts her own inner demons and insecurities – that everyone prefers her pretty sister, that she was blamed for things her sister did, etc. Their experiences with the fairies and confronting their personal demons are traumatic for Christopher and Kate, but they grow through them and come away with a better sense of self and greater self-assurance. Kate’s growth shows in the end both because she other women realize that she no longer fits into her clothes and will need new ones and in her maturity with dealing with her old insecurities when she sees her sister again.
There is a point when, because Alicia is thoughtless in the way she talks and has a habit of giving people the wrong impression about things, Kate thinks that Christopher has fallen in love with Alicia as the prettier sister and that he is going to marry her. This is crushing for Kate because Alicia is often favored by people and because she has fallen in love with Christopher through their shared experiences. The fairy queen makes a last appearance in which she offers to give Kate something to make Christopher fall in love with her, but Kate rejects it. While it would hurt for Christopher to reject her in favor of Alicia, and it would add to past hurts she’s had about Alicia being the favored girl, Kate has grown emotionally through the story. She is above the manipulations of the fairies, and whatever she encounters in her life that might cause her hurt, she has the emotional strength to handle it and do the right thing in spite of it. Her rejection of using dirty tricks is rewarded when Christopher proposes to Kate. Her doubts of his love were only because Alicia is thoughtless in the way she says things to people and because of Kate’s remaining insecurities. Kate is happy that she can accept Christopher’s honest love for what it is without attributing it to any manipulation. They’ve been through the worst together, they’ve seen each other’s insecurities, and they love each other all the more for it.
It isn’t just Christopher and Kate who grow through their experiences. Sir Geoffrey realizes that his own bad decisions and blindness to what was going on contributed to the danger his daughter was in. He had no idea what his steward was involved in and what was going on around the castle. He also realizes that little Cecily needs the attention of someone who can devote herself more to the little girl without distraction and a life in a more settled place with greater access to broader society, so he sends Cecily to her aunt’s house in London. Sir Geoffrey’s acceptance of his own failings absolves Christopher of the last of his guilt over Cecily’s disappearance/abduction.
I also appreciated that characters in the story didn’t hate each other even when they had suffered hut because of them. Sir Geoffrey didn’t stop loving his brother when he thought that Christopher had failed to protect Cecily. He found the loss of his daughter difficult to take, and his brother’s role in that was hard on his feelings for his brother. However, Sir Geoffrey never sought to banish or punish Christopher for it, and when he finds out that Christopher is in trouble, he races to the rescue! In the end, Kate also cares about Alicia. Even when she was punished for the letter that Alicia wrote and thought that she might lose Christopher to her, she didn’t let spite and resentment take over. I appreciate the characters’ growth, and I also liked the way they dealt with their emotions when they were hurt and things were difficult. They still care for their family members because, deep down, they still love them and want to do right by them, even when it isn’t easy.
When Saaski was only a few months old, her grandmother, Old Bess, started to notice that she didn’t look right, compared to the rest of the family or even compared to the way she looked when she was a newer baby. The grandmother tried to brush those thoughts aside, thinking that children change as they grow, and people of the village think that she’s odd herself as a widow who lives alone and knows about herbs. All the same, Saaski seems unusually fussy and throws tantrums, becoming a child who’s difficult to control. It could just be colic, or it could be something stranger.
Old Bess begins to put the pieces together about Saaski’s strange behavior. Saaski seems to hate or fear her own father, and Old Bess realizes that it’s because he is a blacksmith and wears an iron buckle on his belt. Saaski has an aversion to iron. She also has an aversion to salt, and only honey seems to soothe her. Saaski’s eyes change color from time to time, and Old Bess realizes that Saaski not only isn’t her grandchild but that she isn’t even human. Saaski is a changeling, a fairy child switched out for the human child before her christening.
When Old Bess tries to tell her daughter and her husband that Saaski is a changeling, her daughter refuses to believe her. Her husband seems to consider that Old Bess might be right, but he absolutely refuses to do the cruel things to the child that Old Bess tries to tell them will cause the fairy folk to take the changeling back and bring them their real daughter. Old Bess says that Saaski must either be made to tell her true age, which she cannot do because she cannot talk yet, or the parents must do cruel things to her, like beat her, burn her, or throw her down a well. The parents say that they cannot do such things to a baby, no matter what kind of baby it is, and they no longer want to discuss the matter, forbidding Old Bess to tell anyone else of her suspicions.
However, in this case, Old Bess is correct. The child known as Saaski is a changeling, and she knows it herself. Although she is in the form of a human baby, she knows that she is not really a baby. Her fairy name was Moql. She doesn’t know her true age, but she knows that she is a fairy youngling and that she used to live among the other fairies in the fairy mound. She doesn’t like being part of this human family, and she wishes that the fairies would take her back, but she knows that, whatever happens, they never will reclaim her. Even if this family treats her cruelly and the fairies decide to remove her from their house, she knows that they will just place her with a different human family.
The problem is that, unlike other fairies, Moql has no ability to hide from humans. Other fairies can change their shape or color, fade, or just wink out of human vision entirely, but Moql can’t. The fairies discovered it one day when Moql was unable to hide from a human shepherd. She is able to escape from the shepherd, but her blunder isn’t forgiven by the other fairies. Moql’s inability to hide from humans was considered a danger to whole band of fairies. She was taken before the prince of the fairies. When he sees that Moql cannot hide from humans, he remembers that a human man entered the fairy mound some time ago and stayed awhile with a fairy woman. Moql’s mother was a fairy, but her father was that human. As a half-human, Moql will never have the abilities that the other fairy younglings have.
When Moql is considered a danger to the other fairies, they feel little attachment to her or desire to keep her. They don’t consider a half-human likely to work out among the fairies, so they decide to swap her for a human child who might make a good servant to the fairies. They’ve done this before with other younglings like Moql. Moql is frightened because she doesn’t know how to be human. Life in the fairy mound is all that she knows. She is only half human, and if she’s not working out as a half fairy, how can she possibly work out as a human? What if she can’t work out as a human? Will she belong anywhere? What if she belongs nowhere?
The fairies tell her that she will start life all over again as a human baby and that she will forget all about the mound and her past life. The other fairies think nothing of casting her out. None of them really care about her. The fairies don’t feel emotions like humans do, and they don’t feel very much about anybody. Moql’s birth mother doesn’t feel anything for her but a mild curiosity and no concern for her future. Fairy mothers don’t really develop an attachment to their children, who are raised communally in the fairy nursery and school. Most fairies don’t even know who their parents are, and they don’t really develop feelings for their parents any more than parents feel attached to their children. Even fairy couples don’t stay together very long, forgetting about each other when they become bored with the relationship and moving on to others. Fairies don’t really care that much about relationships, like brother and sister, and fairies don’t even have a sense of what being a “friend” means. So far, even Moql hasn’t felt that much for anybody, either. Moql’s first human feelings come with her despair about being torn away from everything and everyone she’s ever known, made worse from realizing that nobody else feels anything for her. In their position, she might not feel anything for the loss of one of them because that’s the fairy way, but the human part of Moql longs for belonging and fears what will happen to her if she can’t find a place or people to belong to.
When Moql wakes the next day, she finds herself as the baby Saaski, but in spite of what the fairies said, she still retains her memories of her fairy life. Everything in this human household is strange. She fears the people who are supposed to be her parents, and most of the things that they offer her to soothe her aren’t soothing to a fairy or half-fairy, which is why she screams and throws tantrums. When she hears Old Bess describe her as a changeling and tries to urge her parents to do things to get rid of her, Moql realizes that she is stuck as a human, no matter what happens. Her only hope is to make herself forget or at least pretend that she doesn’t remember being a fairy and to try her best to be the human baby Saaski. It means pretending that she doesn’t have the ability to do things that a human baby shouldn’t be able to do and that she doesn’t know things that she actually does know. It’s not easy, but Saaski’s memories do fade a bit with time. She has vague memories of her past life, but the longer she lives as a human, the less she remembers of her past.
Time passes, and Saaski grows into a child, but the humans around her have an odd feeling about her. They whisper about her behind her parents’ backs. She doesn’t look like other human children, and odd things seem to happen around her. Saaski doesn’t trust Old Bess because she knows that Old Bess has always suspected she was a changeling. Other children in the village have heard their parents whispering about Saaski, and they start asking her if she really is a changeling. By that point, Saaski isn’t sure anymore what that means.
Old Bess does look for an opportunity at first to get the fairies to take back the changeling, considering shoving her into a pond at one point. However, when she realizes that Saaski has real feelings, she cannot bring herself to do it. She realizes that Saaski is also a victim of the switch when she was exchanged for the real Saaski. She doesn’t really belong among them, Saaski knows it, and Old Bess can tell that it hurts that she’s different and that others don’t accept her. Old Bess isn’t sure how much she understands about herself, her past, or her situation, but it’s been as unfair to her as it has been to the real Saaski and her family. The sense of belonging Saaski craves eludes her.
The only place Saaski really feels at home is out on the moor by herself, although she doesn’t really remember why anymore. That is where she first meets the orphan boy, Tam, who travels with the tinker. Tam knows what other people say about Saaski, but he isn’t afraid of her and likes her anyway. He is the first person who really seems to accept Saaski. For a time, her father forbids her to go on the moor again after she has a distressing encounter with a shepherd, who seems to recognize her as being a fairy.
Surprisingly, Old Bess turns out to be an ally of Saaski’s, urging her parents to let her go to the moor again. She knows how restless Saaski has been, confined to their home. The only thing that has soothed her is the old bagpipes that once belonged to her father’s father. She seems to know how to play them without anyone ever teaching her. Eventually, her parents allow her to return to the moor, partly so she won’t keep playing the bagpipes at home. When she’s able to see Tam again, he is happy to see her, and she shows him how she can play the bagpipes.
There are other things that Saaski seems to know without knowing how she knows. She sometimes sees strange symbols that no one else seems able to see. When Old Bess realizes that she can see these symbols, called runes, the two of them discuss it. Old Bess can’t see them herself, but she knows about them. She learned a lot about such things from an old monk she once cared for and from the books he left behind, which is also where she gained her knowledge of herbs.
Old Bess admits to Saaski that, like her, she is considered strange and that she doesn’t quite belong to the village where they live. She was brought to the village as an infant after she was found abandoned in a basket at a crossroads. They left her at the miller’s house, and she was raised by the miller and her wife. She doesn’t know who her birth parents were, where they came from, or why she was abandoned as an infant, and she was told that the gypsies who found her almost drowned her as a changeling before deciding to leave her in the village.
Saaski also knows that she doesn’t belong in the village, although she can’t think where she does belong. She can’t explain how she is able to see and understand fairy runes or do the other things that she seems able to do, apparently without anyone teaching her. Over time, she gradually discovers or rediscovers the things she could do and knew as a fairy. She discovers that she can see fairies when she spots one stealing Tam’s lunch. Later, a group of fairies try to steal her bagpipes. To Saaski’s surprise, she is able to understand their language, and they seem to recognize her.
Then, after the children in the village bully Saaski again, an illness comes to the village, afflicting all of the children but Saaski. Old Bess says it’s a normal childhood illness she’s seen before, and the children probably got it from the gypsy band who recently passed through town. However, the villagers, who have always been suspicious of Saaski whisper that Saaski is responsible, that she has cursed the other children. Saaski denies is, but the villagers are becoming increasingly hostile. They want her out of the villager, but if Saaski can’t stay there, where can she go?
When Saaski tries to bargain with a fairy for some help to hide from the villagers, the fairy reminds her that she was a fairy herself and that she was never able to disappear. Saaski is stunned at this confirmation of the villager’s suspicions about her being a changeling. When she tells Old Bess about it and about the memories that are now returning to her, Saaski realizes that she really doesn’t belong in this human village, at least not fully. Yet, she remembers that she doesn’t fully belong among the fairies, either. Once again, it leaves her the question of where she does belong. Saaski is going to have to take her fate into her own hands, but before she does, she wants to do something for the family that raised her and has loved her, in spite of everything: find the original Saaski in the fairy mound and return her to her parents.
The book is a Newbery Honor Book.
My Reaction
I enjoyed the story because it is a unique portrayal of the folkloric idea of changelings. Another book I read on the same topic, The Half Child, is told from a real world, historical point of view, without fantasy. In that book, changelings are disabled children or children who aren’t “normal” in some way who are labeled as being something other than human or “real” children because people of the past couldn’t understand why they were different or what was wrong with them.
The Moorchild, however, is fantasy and builds on the folklore concept. In other books with changelings, we see the changelings from the point of view of other people, who wonder about their true nature, but this book includes multiple viewpoints, including that of the changeling herself. In folklore, it isn’t entirely clear why the fairies would want to change their children with human children, leaving them to be raised by other people and possibly never seeing them again. This book builds on that concept, portraying the changeling children as being half human and/or flawed in some way, compared to the other fairies. They do use the human children they gain in the swap as servants, which is a folkloric concept, but this story explains why the fairy child left in exchange for the abducted human child is an acceptable loss to the other fairies.
Fairies in this story don’t have the same types of feelings as humans. In fact, they don’t seem to feel much at all, making most of their lives literally care-free because they just don’t care that much about others or the consequences of their actions. However, they don’t feel much emotional attachment to each other, either. Saaski/Moql’s birth mother doesn’t feel much of anything for her daughter or for the man whose life she changed and worsened through her seduction and rejection. She is completely unconcerned about what has happened to them or what will happen to them because of her. Later, Saaski realizes that the fairies are aware that Saaski is blamed for pranks they played, but they don’t mean it spitefully. They genuinely don’t care whether Saaski or someone else is blamed for things they do as long as they never get caught themselves. When Saaski realizes that the other fairies genuinely don’t care about her or what happens to her, she knows that they will never take her back and that she will never rejoin them.
Saaski feels more emotion than full fairies feel, but she doesn’t always respond in acceptable or predictable ways to the humans she lives with because she doesn’t share all of the emotions they feel. She craves a sense of belonging, but she doesn’t really know how to get it or create it. At times, she feels love and gratitude without being entirely sure what she’s feeling or how to express it. Strangely, she also doesn’t experience hate and resentment in the same way humans do. Tam tries to explain it to her, and Saaski recognizes that the children in the village who bully her feel hatred and resentment to her, but she doesn’t feel those emotions herself. She doesn’t like it when they bully her, and she feels hurt by them, but the emotion of hating and wanting to hurt them back isn’t there. I thought that was an interesting concept, exploring someone with non-conforming emotional reactions. Saaski’s emotions in the story are explained by her fairy heritage, but what made it interesting to me is that neurodivergent humans also have different ways of experiencing and showing emotions that can change the way they are accepted by or interact with other people, which brings the idea of changelings full circle, back to the concept of children who aren’t like other children from birth or a young age.
I thought it was fascinating that we get to see things both from Saaski’s point of view and from the point of view of other people, particularly Old Bess. Old Bess is the first to realize that Saaski is a changeling and not her “real” granddaughter. She understandably wants her real granddaughter back, and she knows the folklore that fairy folk will take back a changeling who has been abused. However, Saaski’s parents, even knowing or suspecting that Saaski might be a changeling, cannot bring themselves to do anything cruel to her, and Old Bess comes around to that point of view herself. By observing Saaski, she sees that Saaski is a child, if not an entirely human child, and an innocent victim of the switch herself, with feelings and a difficult life ahead of her because she doesn’t fit in with this community.
Old Bess also recalls and admits to Saaski that her own past isn’t quite normal and that she also doesn’t quite fit in. I wondered if we would ever get the full story of Old Bess’s past, but unfortunately, we don’t. We know that she was abandoned as an infant, apparently rejected by her birth family or guardian, but we never learn why. I had wondered at first if Old Bess would turn out to be a grown-up changeling. It seems that people once suspected that about her, but apparently, she isn’t because she can’t see the fairies or fairy writing in the way Saaski does. It seems that Old Bess is fully human and not half fairy. In the end, the important point is that, when Old Bess is honest with herself and Saaski about her past, her story has some elements in common with Saaski’s situation. They have both known rejection and abandonment, the difficulties of trying to fit in when they don’t entirely fit in, and the love of people who accepted them and cared for them in spite of it all.
I appreciated that Saaski’s parents do their best to love and care for Saaski even when they know she’s strange and may not be their daughter. They stand up to the people who bully their daughter and pressure them to get rid of her. In fact, in the end, even after Saaski and Tam set out into the world together and they have their birth daughter back, they still think of Saaski and miss her sometimes. Saaski was no replacement for the daughter they lost when they were switched, but at the same time, they realize that their birth daughter doesn’t entirely replace Saaski in their lives and affections. In the end, it’s like they’ve had two daughters, both of them “real”, although one didn’t fit in and eventually left to start a new life elsewhere.
Lucy Emerson (Lucy Watson after her marriage) and her family live in an English village in the 17th century. As an elderly woman in her early 60s, she looks back on her sister, Sarah. She has actually had two sisters named Sarah, but it’s her first sister Sarah that she thinks of.
Little Sarah was always a strange child. From when she was very small, she would do odd things, like rocking back and forth while singing odd little wordless songs and being very clumsy. She could never talk clearly, and most people couldn’t really understand her. Because she is abnormal, she is quickly labeled as a “changeling” – a fairy baby substituted for a regular human child. Those who don’t call her a changeling call her a “half-wit.” Only Lucy really values Sarah, whether she’s a little human child or a fairy child, and she tries hard to understand her and take care of her. What Sarah likes best are the little “stone dollies” – small statues of praying children – in the local church, and she always asks Lucy to take her there to see them.
Lucy and Sarah’s mother is often harsh with Sarah out of frustration because she’s difficult to understand and difficult to deal with. Some people in the community think that she should be even more harsh with Sarah than she is because, if she really is a changeling, the fairies or Little People might snatch her back if she isn’t being treated well, being beaten or starved. Their Granny believes that Sarah is a changeling, and she implies it often, comparing a changeling child to a cuckoo’s egg, substituted in the next for another’s bird’s egg. However, their mother never refers to Sarah as a changeling and doesn’t seem to believe that Sarah isn’t really her daughter.
Then, one day, they can’t find Sarah. It seems like she’s wandered off by herself. Lucy looks in the church to see of Sarah went there to look at the “stone dollies.” Sarah isn’t there, but one of the dollies has the daisy chain that Lucy made for Sarah. According to superstition, a daisy chain helps to protect a child from the fairies, and Lucy thinks that, without it, maybe the fairies did carry Sarah away. On the other hand, maybe Sarah fell in the river, and it carried her away. Worried, Lucy desperately searches the village for Sarah, until one woman says that she saw Sarah in the churchyard. She would have walked Sarah home, but Sarah didn’t want to come with her, so she came to get Lucy to take her. Lucy hurries back to the churchyard and finds Sarah there, waiting for her. Lucy demands to know what Sarah has been doing, and she says that she’s been playing with the “little people.” Fearing that Sarah is talking about the fairies, Lucy demands to know if she’s seen them before or had anything to eat from them, but Sarah just says, “Not telling.” Lucy considers that maybe Sarah meant something other than fairies when she said, “little people.” Maybe Sarah just met some other young children, or maybe she was talking about playing with the stone dollies again.
One day, Lucy leaves Sarah at home with their mother when she goes to visit their older sister, Martha, who is working at a farm near a neighboring town. Lucy’s mother tells her that Sarah should stay home because it’s such a long walk to the farm, and Sarah is too little to handle it. When Lucy returns home from the visit, she discovers that something disastrous has happened while she was away. Lucy’s mother, who was pregnant and due to give birth in another month or so, accidentally tripped over Sarah in some way and fall, bringing on the birth of the baby too soon. A neighbor who came to borrow some salt found her and called the midwife to come and tend to her. The baby is safely delivered and survives, but Lucy’s mother is in bad condition.
While everyone was busy attending to the mother, little Sarah apparently ran away from the house and disappeared. Lucy is too worried about her mother and the baby at first to leave the house and go looking for Sarah, although she sends her brother to ask the neighbors if they’ve seen her. Her uncle promises to look for her in the countryside and to send out criers to the neighboring towns if she isn’t found. However, the town is also disrupted that day by soldiers who vandalize the town’s church! Later, Lucy goes to look for Sarah in her usual favorite spots, but she doesn’t find her. When Lucy returns home, her brother tells her that their mother has died.
Their father says that their mother’s last wish was that this new baby girl will be named Sarah. Lucy is shocked because she is sure that the sister named she already has is still out there somewhere, lost. Lucy’s father isn’t so sure. He seems to suspect that the rumors were right, that Sarah was always a changeling, that maybe she has gone back to the fairies now, and that this new baby may be the Sarah they were always meant to have. At least, Lucy’s mother seemed to believe that when she told him that this new baby was to be named Sarah. Lucy never thought that her father believed the changeling stories, but he privately admits to Lucy that he doesn’t really know what to think. None of it makes sense to Lucy because, after all, her mother was pregnant with this new baby while Sarah was still at home with them. If the first Sarah was taken away and the “real” Sarah left her in place, surely there would be two babies now – the “real” Sarah plus this other new sister. As it is, there’s only one baby and one missing sister. Lucy father says that if Sarah returns before the baby’s christening, they will choose another name for the baby, but if she’s still gone, she is probably gone for good, and the baby will be named Sarah.
Sarah is not found by the time the baby is christened, so the new baby becomes the “new” Sarah. Sarah’s father and sister, Martha, try to console Lucy about the loss of the first Sarah, saying that it might be for the best and that Lucy’s life will be easier now because Sarah was too wild, too strange, and too difficult to care for. Lucy feels even worse then they say that because, although Sarah was difficult to look after, Lucy truly loved her and didn’t think of her as a burden. Lucy takes care of her new sister for a couple of years, never giving up hope that she will find the first Sarah or at least learn what happened to her. When Lucy’s father decides to remarry, Lucy goes to work on the farm where Martha is working, leaving the new Sarah to be cared for by their stepmother.
It’s only after Lucy goes to work on the farm that she eventually meets someone who is able to tell her at least some of what happened to the first Sarah after she was lost.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Some Spoilers
I first read this story as a young teen in middle school, and I found it fascinating for the historical and folkloric connections. This story takes place over a period of years. The year when the older Lucy reflects on her sister Sarah is 1700. During the year that the first Sarah disappeared, Lucy is talking to someone else, and they mention the Roundheads and that the king was executed the year before, so they are referring to the execution of Charles I in 1649, putting the year of that conversation at 1650. Most of the book is set around the middle of the 17th century.
In real life, there were stories about changelings, fairy children substituted for human children as infants, and stories like this seem to have been used to explain human children born with deformities or disabilities of various kinds. Modern people might recognize that young Sarah was born with some kind of developmental disability, which is why she’s not like her siblings, but people in the past didn’t have as much ability to diagnose or understand people who were born “different” from others. They couldn’t understand how children with disabilities could be born to apparently healthy parents, especially ones who had produced other healthy children, so they explained it by saying that those children were not the “real” children but substitutes left by the fairies in exchange for the healthy human children, like a cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, to be raised and cared for by them. In the story, Lucy’s grandmother makes the comparison between Sarah and the cuckoo bird, although Lucy is very upset by that description.
During the course of the story, Lucy, as the one who seems to understand Sarah the best and love her the most, struggles to find her missing sister and learn what happened to her. At various times, she also struggles to reconcile what other people tell her about Sarah being a changeling or being taken away by fairies with her own love for Sarah as her sister, a real sister and not just a changeling, and her own worries about the more mundane tragedies that can befall a lost and neglected child. There are times when Lucy finds it difficult to ignore the superstitions of the people who raised her, and she finds herself at least halfway believing in fairies and that the girl she loves as a sister is in danger from them. While Sarah is with her, she makes daisy chains for her to wear as a precaution against the fairies taking her, although those who seem to most believe that Sarah is a changeling would be happy to see her reclaimed by fairies in the hopes of getting the “real” child back.
When their dying mother insists that the new baby girl be named Sarah, Lucy is heart-broken, realizing that her mother believes that Sarah was a changeling all along and that this new baby is the “real” daughter that Sarah should have been. However, to Lucy, who always loved the first Sarah, this new baby is the imposter Sarah, the “new” Sarah, taking the place of the Sarah she has loved and cared for. She never feels the same way about the new Sarah as she did for the first Sarah.
What always interested me about the story since I read it when I was young was how it demonstrates that real phenomena and the more inexplicable parts of human nature are part of the basis behind folklore. All through the book, people refer to children like the first Sarah as being “changelings” because they simply don’t understand why these children are the way they are, but the superstition is ultimately less about people genuinely trying to understand something and more finding a way of taking out their emotions on the “problem” or finding an excuse for not really dealing with it. Beyond the adults simply failing to understand children like Sarah and help their development to the best of their ability, their superstitions lead some of them to be deliberately cruel to children like her in the hopes that the fairies will decide to reclaim them. When a child like that runs away or is lost and never recovered, the adults tell themselves that the child was simply taken by the fairies, apparently both as an excuse to stop looking for a child they don’t know how to handle and also to soothe themselves that they don’t have to worry about her anymore because she is being taken care of by her “real” supernatural family. Whether they really believe that’s what is happening on an intellectual level or not, if they can convince themselves and others that it’s true on an emotional level, then they’re basically letting themselves off the hook and getting rid of an unwanted responsibility without guilt, which sounds a lot less noble than trying to understand and help make the situation better. I think that attitude comes from the sense that these people didn’t think it was even possible for them to understand or deal with the situation. From that attitude, the notion of the “problem child” magically vanishing would be appealing.
It’s sad because, as readers realize, that is not actually the case. Sarah’s disappearance isn’t magical. What Lucy learns about Sarah after the time she disappeared contradicts that idea because she did almost die but was rescued by a kind stranger who happened to be in the right place to find her. Sarah’s eventual whereabouts are unknown at the end of the story because she seems to have wandered off when her caretaker died or shortly before that. Until the very end of the story, elderly Lucy thinks that Sarah is probably dead, having spent some time wandering wild somewhere, but the fact that she never learns for sure leaves it open that Sarah could be alive or for Lucy to convince herself that maybe she finally got Sarah back in the end. When another child, who is very like Sarah, is born into the family, elderly Lucy finds herself wondering again about changelings. Is this new child just another unfortunate child who happened to inherit the developmental disability that Sarah had, or has the original Sarah managed to come back to Lucy in another form? They are so much alike that Lucy begins speaking to her as Sarah, and the new child answers just like Sarah always did, leaving the situation ambiguous in Lucy’s mind.
Although Lucy is ambivalent in her feelings at the end of the story, modern readers will likely side with the more scientific explanation of heredity and genes that sometimes reappear in later generations, producing lookalikes and people with similar health conditions. However, I think that the author did a good job of depicting the uncertainty that affects people confronted by situations and conditions they have no capacity to understand. The people of Lucy’s time did not understand what causes developmental disabilities. Because they needed to come up with an explanation for something they couldn’t understand, they developed the superstition about children like Sarah not being fully human or being substitutes for the “real” children, who were abducted by supernatural beings. Lucy finds herself torn between her own sense that Sarah is her real, human sister and that there must be more logical explanations and her own inability to understand what ultimately happened to her sister.
The book is a little sad because readers can recognize that, with better understanding and support, the original Sarah would have lived a much happier life and that Lucy (and others who appear later in the story) wanted to give her the support she needed but just didn’t know how. At the end of the book, Lucy reflects that times have changed since she was younger. Most people don’t believe in changelings and other old superstitions in 1700, not as much as they did in 1650. The Puritans, in particular, reject all such ideas as “pagan superstitions.” Society seems to be moving more in the direction of rationalism. Lucy says, “So there are plenty boasting nowadays that they cannot believe in such hocus-pocus, and that they have what they call a scientific reason for explaining any strange happenings that occur, instead of blaming the fairies, duergars or witches even. Though much that some call scientific I would say was just plain common sense.”
Even though Lucy generally believes in the rational explanations for what likely happened to the first Sarah, she experiences some doubt again at the end of the story, when she’s confronted with the young relative who looks so much like her. I liked the way the story ends on a slightly ambiguous note, with Lucy reconsidering whether or not Sarah was a changeling and if she has come back to her in another form. Modern readers know that’s not likely, but it does speak to the lifelong uncertainty that Lucy has lived with and the element of uncertainty that often surrounds the human experience in general. Even in modern times, there are many things that we don’t fully understand. In the 21st century, we’re more likely to accept the idea that, just because we don’t know the explanation for something doesn’t mean that there is no explanation that humans can understand but that we just don’t understand it yet. Still, that feeling that there are things beyond our mental grasp still appeals to the human imagination. If Lucy wants to believe that she has found Sarah again, after a fashion, it might give her some peace. For me, though, I just feel a little reassured that this member of the next generation might get more of the love, attention, and support that Sarah always needed, at least from Lucy, and less of the superstition surrounding her condition.
In the section at the back of the book about the author, it says that Kathleen Hersom used to volunteer at a hospital working with mentally disabled children. She was inspired to write this story both because of that experience and because of her interest in folklore.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 