The story of how I rediscovered this beautiful story is an interesting one, and I owe a large part of my blog idea to it.
When I was younger, every now and again, I would recall an amazing story I loved as kid (it was actually a book that belonged to my older brother), but much to my frustration I could never remember its title or author, and the book had long since disappeared from the house.
One day at the charity store where I work casually, I was putting out a box of books for sale and one title caught my eye. Sure enough, it was The Book! – The Children of Green Knowe. After all these years of wondering about this amazing story I used to love, it turned up at my work, and I snapped it up for a couple of dollars.
I re-read the book and, as I had in my younger years, absolutely loved it. When I reached the end, I was in tears on the train during my morning commute. It’s such a beautiful story. I’m a sucker for any bittersweet, tragic, meant-to-be-together-but-can’t story, and combined with the sheer magic of the setting and the way you come to know the characters, it’s an amazing novel.
Tolly is sent to stay with his eccentric great-grandmother during school holidays. She lives in a 900 year old castle, on a semi-rural property complete with a groundskeeper called Boggis, a bunch of mysterious children, deer, squirrels, field mice, foxes, owls, peacocks, fish, shrubs pruned in the shapes of animals and people, the ruins of a centuries-old cathedral, a moat, and a stone Saint Christopher.
Tolly discovers that there are children dwelling within the house, who the lonely boy with barely a family – a distant father, a departed mother and stepmother with whom he doesn’t click – desperately needs. Green Knowe and its inhabitants provide Tolly with a place where he truly belongs.
The story is magical and wondrous in its detail, perhaps even more so to a Southern Hemisphere suburban born and bred reader, who can only imagine the sheer exoticness of concepts such as being ‘snowed in’, (the Northern equivalent of being sent home from school because it’s too hot, I imagine. Not that that ever actually happened!) Bengal matches (green and red flames? I want some!) and living on a property with stables.
The Children of Green Knowe is beautifully illustrated by the author’s son, Peter Boston, and takes us back to a time of boarding schools, and British fathers working in far flung outposts of the Empire – in this case, the country formally known as Burma.
The Children of Green Knowe is filled with beautiful imagery, which transports the reader into its world, along with providing a subtle, moving commentary on loneliness, belonging, the passing of time, the briefness of childhood and mortality. Not long into the book we discover the devastating truth about Toby, Alexander, and Linnet, but our relationship with them continues. I definitely recommended the book to anyone who wants to read a bittersweet, captivating story. I’m off to find the other books in the series, A Stranger at Green Knowe (which won a Carnegie Medal) and The River at Green Knowe, and to hunt down the BBC series.
*At the end of my copy of the book, published in 2006, there are contact details for the author’s daughter-in-law, who runs tours of the house in which the Green Knowe series is set (Lucy M. Boston based the series on her own house and garden – can you imagine?) I was so frustrated to find this out now, as I lived in London for two years and would have definitely hopped on a train to go visit the property. Next time for sure!
