Posted on by TracyC

The Children of Green Knowe

Green Knowe

The Children of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston, 1954, 1955, 1982, 1983.

Seven-year-old Toseland is traveling by train to stay with his great-grandmother Oldknow at the old family home, Green Noah, for Christmas. His mother is dead, and his father now lives in Burma with his new wife, who Toseland doesn’t know very well. He has no brothers or sisters, and he spends most of his time at boarding school, so he is often lonely, wishing that he had a family outside of school, like the other boys. His great-grandmother is the only other relative he has, and he has never met her before. He is a little nervous at the idea of meeting her because he knows that she must be very old.

When Toseland arrives at the station, it’s raining, and there has been flooding, but there is a taxi-man waiting to take him to the house. When he arrives, he is immediately fascinated by the large, old house and all of the things in it. It reminds him of a castle, and he marvels at how his great-grandmother could live in such a place. He is surprised at how at home he feels there and how easily he likes and gets along with his great-grandmother. For the first time in his life since his mother died, he really feels at home, and when he asks if the house partly belongs to him, too, his great-grandmother reassures him that it does.

The two of them talk about what to call each other. Toseland’s great-grandmother asks him to call her Granny (although she is still often called Mrs. Oldknow throughout the book), and she asks him if he has any nicknames. Toseland says that the boys at school call him Towser and his stepmother calls him Toto, but he doesn’t like either nickname. Granny Oldknow says that Toseland is a family name and there have been other Toselands before him. The last one was his grandfather, and his nickname was Tolly, so Granny asks him if he would like to be called that also. Toseland says that he likes that nickname better than the others, and his mother used to call him that, so he is called Tolly from that point on.

Granny Oldknow shows Tolly to his room and helps him begin to unpack. It’s a wonderful room with many old toys that used to belong to the other children who have lived in the house in the past. Among the toys is an old dollhouse which Tolly realizes is a miniature version of the house they’re in. When he finds the miniature version of his room, he notices that there are four beds in it instead of one. He asks Granny Oldknow if other children stay at Green Noah, and she cryptically says that they do sometimes, and he might see them, but they come when they want to.

Tolly becomes fascinated by a portrait of three children in old-fashioned clothes with their mother and grandmother. Granny Oldknow tells him that those three children lived in the house long ago. The oldest boy was an earlier Toseland, who was nicknamed Toby. His younger brother was named Alexander, and their little sister was named Linnet. Granny Oldknow had been an orphan when she was a child and was raised at Green Noah by an uncle. Because she was an only child, she often lonely and liked to pretend that the children in the picture were her siblings, so Tolly decides that he’d like to do the same thing.

Tolly asks his great-grandmother questions about Toby, Alexander, and Linnet and learns details of their lives. Toby had a sword because he was going to be a soldier when he grew up, a pet deer, and a horse named Feste who loved him. Alexander had a book in Latin that he loved to read and a special flute. Linnet used to keep birds in a wicker cage that is still in Tolly’s room, along with the toy mouse that used to belong to Toby. Sometimes, Tolly thinks that toys in his room move when he’s not looking, and at night, he hears children moving about and laughing, and he thinks that it’s the three children from the painting.

Tolly comes to the conclusion that the three children are still around Green Noah and that they’re playing hide-and-seek with them. He tries to play with them, too, and the children apparently give him a twig in the shape of a ‘T’. Granny Oldknow tells him that she used to play hide-and-seek with the children when she was young, and they would give her an ‘L’ twig because her first name is Linnet, like the little girl in the painting. Later, he hears the children singing Christmas carols. Tolly becomes frustrated that the children tease him and never really show themselves to him, but Mrs. Oldknow tells him that “they’re like shy animals” and that he has to give them a chance to decide that they’re ready to come to him.

He finds the key to the old toy box in his room, and inside the box, he finds more things that belonged to the three children. When he shows them to Mrs. Oldknow, she talks about how things were when the three children were alive at Green Noah. Tolly is shocked when he realizes for the first time that Toby, Alexander, and Linnet are all dead. Mrs. Oldknow gently tells him that they lived at Green Noah centuries ago and could not be alive now. Sadly, the children all died young in the Great Plague during the 17th century. Their illness was sudden and brief, and they all sickened and died in one day along with their mother. Tolly and his great-grandmother are descended from the children’s older brother, who wasn’t at home when this happened. However, the children never left Green Noah, which used to be called Green Knowe years ago. Tolly still loves the children, even though they’re ghostly and elusive. He craves the sense of family he gets from them, having been deprived of family feelings for so much of his young life.

Mrs. Oldknow continues to tell Tolly stories about the three children and other members of his family. As his connection to his ancestors grows, Tolly begins to catch glimpses of the children more and more, and eventually, he’s able to see them and talk to them. He asks the children about their mother, and the children say that she’s in heaven but doesn’t mind them coming back to visit their old home from time to time. The children don’t seem sad at being dead, enjoying the freedom of playing around their old home with the animals and the spirits of their old pets, who keep them company. Their final illnesses had only lasted a few hours before they died, and their deaths happened so long ago that they say that they hardly remember the Great Plague and what it felt like. Tolly is still sad and frustrated that the children appear and disappear so suddenly, but his attachment to them grows and so does his attachment to Green Noah itself. As Christmas comes, Tolly develops a bond with his family, both living and dead, and a realization that the old family home that connects them is also his home, a place they can all return to.

The book is the first in a series and is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers

This is a ghost story, but it’s not a scary ghost story. There’s nothing frightening about the three ghost children. It’s sad that they died so young, but at the same time, they’re not very sad about it themselves. They seem to enjoy playing together endlessly with the animals around their old home and seeing the new relatives who inhabit the house, their older brother’s descendants. Even their former pets are no longer sad at the children’s passing because they are also spirits who continue to play with them through the centuries. There is one semi-scary part of the story involving a witch’s curse placed on an old tree called Green Noah, which is how the name of the house was changed from Green Knowe, but Tolly is protected by the ghosts of his ancestors.

There is never any desire for the characters to rid Green Noah of its ghosts. They are family and are part of the place, as much a part of it as the living are. The ghosts do not feel trapped there, either. They are just revisiting the home they loved and the family members who now live there. They can come and go as they please, and the ghost children often do.

This also is not the kind of story where a child knows that a place is haunted but can’t convince the adults or tries to hide the ghosts’ presence from the adults. Mrs. Oldknow is fully aware that the ghosts are there and has known about them since her own childhood. Generations of children in the family have probably known about them and played with them, and they are also not the only family ghosts who inhabit the old house. At one point, Tolly and Mrs. Oldknow hear a woman singing and the rocking of a cradle, and Mrs. Oldknow says that she’s heard it before around Christmas, a grandmother singing to a baby. Tolly is confused because even little Linnet wasn’t a baby when she died, and Mrs. Oldknow says that this isn’t the children’s grandmother but somebody from generations earlier than the three children. This grandmother ghost has been around so long that Mrs. Oldknow doesn’t know who she or the baby are supposed to be, although we are told that they are about 400 years old, where the three children died about 300 years earlier. Generations of the same family have lived in the house and have all left their mark on it, and part of them is still there. Now, Tolly has also become part of this family home, and it’s also a part of him. The ghosts are hesitant to fully show themselves to Tolly at first and seem more attached to Granny Oldknow, probably because she’s lived there longer, since she was an infant. The ghosts know her, and she knows all of their stories. However, they are all family, and Tolly develops a new connection to his family as his great-grandmother tells him the stories about them, and he can hear and see the ghosts more often.

Really, that feeling of connection and connectedness is the primary focus of the story. In the beginning, Tolly is lonely, feeling like he doesn’t have a family and doesn’t belong anywhere or to anyone. His father lives far away in Burma with his new wife, and Tolly doesn’t feel connected to them. His mother is gone, and he spends most of his time at school, even having to remain there during the holidays when other students are going home to their families. His great-grandmother inviting him to Green Noah is the first time that Tolly feels a real connection to anyone in his family since his mother’s death, and through her stories and his encounters with the ghosts, he comes to see that he really is part of a much larger family, going back ages. Just because most of his family is now dead or scattered doesn’t mean that they’re not his family. They still love him, and he loves them, even across the centuries. Green Noah really is a family home, and it’s a place that family can return to, even those who seem to be gone forever. It’s a place that has known both the joys of a happy family and the tragedies of loss that families experience from time to time. Through it all, it’s still home, and importantly, it becomes the home that Tolly has been wishing for.

The story takes place in the days leading up to Christmas, and by Christmas, Tolly has received important presents. First, the ghostly Alexander grants him the give of his special flute, which had been a reward from King Charles II for singing so beautifully for him when he was alive. Tolly also has musical talents, and his great-grandmother decides to switch him to a different school so he can develop his talents and so he can stay at Green Noah during his school holidays. On Christmas, Tolly also receives his own pet dog, very much like the one that the ghostly Linnet owned, and he names his dog after hers, just as he has been named after all the other Toselands who have gone before.

In some ways, the story reminds me a little of When Marnie Was There (some people might know the story from the Miyazaki movie version), which has similar themes of family and belonging and ancestors reaching out across time to remind children that, while life is brief and often complicated, love is eternal and everyone belongs somewhere and to someone. However, The Children of Greene Knowe is a much gentler story, and it also contains some shorter stories about Tolly’s family.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Mystery of Drear House

The Mystery of Drear House cover

The Mystery of Drear House by Virginia Hamilton, 1987.

This book is the continuation of The House of Dies Drear, and the final book in the short series.

The Smalls are now settled into the house that formerly belonged to the abolitionist Dies Drear, who used secret tunnels to help smuggle escaping slaves to freedom as part of the Underground Railroad. Thomas Small’s father is a college professor, who finds the history of the house endlessly fascinating, especially now that they know about the hidden treasure that the caretaker, Mr. Pluto has been guarding for many years.

Apart from the Small family and Mr. Pluto, Pesty is only other person who knows where the hidden treasure is. Pesty (a nickname, her real name is Sarah) is the adopted daughter of the Darrow family, who live nearby. The Darrows are generally known to be nasty and scheming, and they have spent years looking for the treasure they know that Dies Drear hid. In the last book, Pesty helped the others to frighten off the Darrows when they were getting too close to the secret, but Thomas is still concerned that they might be a threat. He also privately questions Pesty’s loyalty, wondering if she’ll continue to keep the secret from the Darrows, although Mr. Pluto is confident that she will because she knew the secret of the treasure even before the Smalls did.

Mac, a boy about Thomas’s age, is the youngest of the Darrow brothers, and he’s not as mean as the rest of his family. Thomas kind of wants to be friends with him, but he’s not sure if he can really trust him. Mac tells Thomas that he can come over to visit sometime and that his mother is an invalid who sometimes spends months in bed. When Mac shows an interest in Thomas’s great-grandmother, who is coming to live with them, Thomas gets the idea to bring his great-grandmother over to the Darrow house to visit Mac and Pesty’s mother.

However, before they can visit Mrs. Darrow, she comes to visit them, entering their house through one of the secret passages that Thomas and his family haven’t learned about yet. She startles Thomas’s great-grandmother with her sudden arrival, and Thomas is irritated that Pesty didn’t tell him about that secret passage even though she knew about it. Pesty explains to them that her mother is mentally ill, a chronic condition of some kind, and she gets a little odd during times when she doesn’t take her medicine. Thomas’s great-grandmother seems to understand the situation, and she insists on escorting Mrs. Darrow home.

In the secret tunnel Mrs. Darrow used to come to their house, there are hidden rooms, and when they all arrive at the Darrow house, Mrs. Darrow begins telling them a kind of odd story, really little bits and pieces of stories that she has told Pesty and Mac before. Pesty seems to have a better understanding of what Mrs. Darrow is talking about than Mac does, but Thomas can tell that Mac has heard his mother tell these stories before and that he is also trying to get a better understanding of them. For some reason, Pesty seems to be holding back information from Mac as well as Thomas.

The story that seems to concern Mrs. Darrow the most is about an Indian Maiden (Native American). She seems to get upset at first when Thomas mentions that Mac had mentioned an Indian Maiden before. It turns out that the Darrows are part Native American, and the “Indian Maiden” is one of their relatives from the past. She played a role in the Underground Railroad with Dies Drear but lost her life when she was caught. The Indian Maiden was hiding secrets that Pesty is still trying to protect, and she has also been worried about Mrs. Darrow, who sometimes acts out part of the old story as if she were the Indian Maiden herself.

Meanwhile, it seems like someone is playing the ghost of Dies Drear and trying to frighten Mr. Pluto into telling him about the hidden treasure. Thomas and Pesty see the tracks of this person one day when they go to visit Mr. Pluto. The relationships between the different members of the Darrow family are complicated, and not all of them are really after the same thing.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

Mrs. Darrow’s mental illness and the different motives of the younger Darrows vs. the older Darrow boys and their father are at the heart of much of the mystery and peculiarity of the Darrow family. Mac actually opposed his father and brothers the last time they tried to get the hidden Drear treasure, and since then, they’ve been shunning him. Pesty tries to look after Mrs. Darrow as best she can, but she’s been handling the job largely by herself, and at the same time, she could really use the support of a mother who can look after her. Pesty doesn’t really like all of the secrets that she has been forced to keep, but for a long time, she hasn’t felt safe in confiding the full truth of anything to anybody. She feels even more left out of the Darrow family than Mac is because she’s their adopted child, not a blood relative, even though she is always looking after Mrs. Darrow and thinks of her as her “Mama.”

The solution to many of the problems with the Darrows comes with the public exposure of the Drear treasure and the end to all the secrecy. The Smalls decide to give Mrs. Darrow the credit for finding the treasure, so although Mr. Darrow is angry that he will never get his hands on the hidden treasure that he and his family have searched for so long, they will get part of the reward money for finding it. The foundation that receives the treasure also gives jobs to Mr. Small and Mr. Darrow, changing the lives of the Darrows for the better. Even though Mr. Darrow didn’t get what his family originally wanted, they end up with something that improves their situation, and they no longer feel the need to hide Mrs. Darrow’s condition from everyone. The Darrows are freed from part of their past, and now, they’ll be able to go forward with their lives. Mr. Darrow also shows that he really cares about his adopted daughter.

The Darrows are a mixed race family, and their heritage is in keeping with real events in American history. People with mixed black and Native American heritage are sometimes colloquially known as “Black Indians,” and people with that type of mixed ancestry have existed in the Americas since Colonial times. By the end of the story, the Darrows’ full history isn’t completely explained in detail, but it seems that it was probably Dies Drear’s work with the Underground Railroad that brought their ancestors together. Freed and escaped slaves did sometimes intermarry with Native Americans.

Posted on by TracyC

Knots on a Counting Rope

Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, 1966, 1987.

The reason for the two copyright dates is that this book originally had somewhat different text and different illustrations.  I don’t have a copy of the original version, so I’m not sure how it compares to the 1987 version.

The story is told in the form of dialog between a young Navajo boy and his grandfather.  The story doesn’t explicitly say that they are Navajo, but they refer to hogans, which are a traditional type of Navajo house.  There are no words in the story other than what the characters say to each other, not even to indicate who is speaking, but you can tell who is speaking based on what they say.

The boy asks his grandfather to tell him the story of when he was born. The grandfather says that he already knows the story, but the boy persuades him to tell the story again.

The grandfather tells him that, on the night he was born, there was a storm, and it sounded like the wind was crying the word “boy.”  The boy’s mother knew that she was going to give birth to a son.  The grandfather quickly brought the boy’s grandmother to be there for the birth, and when the boy gave his first cry, the storm suddenly stopped.

When the boy was born, he was very frail, and everyone was afraid that he would die.  Then, when morning came, the grandfather carried him outside, and although he did not open his eyes to the morning sun, he lived his arms up to two horses that had galloped by and stopped to look at him.  The grandfather took it as a sign that the boy was a brother to the horses and would live because he had the horses’ strength.  The boy did become stronger and was given the name of Boy-Strength-of-Blue-Horses.

However, the boy was born blind. It is a hardship that he will always have to deal with.  Even though the word “blue” in his name, the boy says that he doesn’t really know what “blue” is or what it’s like because he’s never seen it.  The grandfather describes it as being like morning because the sky in the morning is blue, and the boy says that he understands what mornings are like because they feel and sound different from night to him.

The boy has a horse of his own, and the two of them have a special bond.  The two of them perform well at races, and the horse acts as the boy’s eyes when he’s riding.  His grandfather says that it’s like the two of them are one.

As the grandfather tells the boy stories about himself, he ties knots on the counting rope.  He says that when the rope is full of knots, the boy will have heard the stories enough that he will be able to tell them himself.  The grandfather says that he will not always be there to tell the stories, and the boy is frightened, wondering what he will do without his grandfather. The grandfather says that he will be all right because his love will be with him.

The book is partly about the relationship between the boy and his grandfather and the grandfather preparing his grandson for the day when he will be gone, making sure that he knows the family stories about himself and the knowledge that he will need for the future. It’s also about the boy’s own struggles in life, which the grandfather refers to as the “dark mountains” that he must cross. Because of the boy’s blindness, he lives in a world of darkness, and there are things that are challenging to him that would be less challenging to a person with normal vision. Yet, the boy has innate skills which allow him to do things that some people with normal vision can’t do. Not everyone has the affinity for horses that the boy has. He shares a special bond with horses, and when he rides, he and his horse are a team. Because he has skills and a strong spirit, the grandfather knows that his grandson will be all right in his future, in spite of the challenges of his blindness.

The book was featured on Reading Rainbow, and it is currently available online through Internet Archive.