Lucy M. Boston's 1954 middle grade story, *The Children of Green Knowe*, is the first of six novels set in and around the fictional Green Knowe, an ancient British manor house (based on and modeled after Boston's own home, the Manor at Hemingford Grey, which was built in the 1130s and is supposedly the oldest continually inhabited house in the United Kingdom). And while Green Knowe is, of course, a fictionalized Hemingford Grey Manor, the lovingly and evocatively depicted and described residence...

The best days are the ones that make you forget you ever stopped being a kid. Maybe it's bumping into an old schoolmate, going back to your childhood home, a familiar taste, a scent. Or just rediscovering—or discovering for the first time—a book like 'The Children of Green Knowe' by Lucy M. Boston, a book you fall so deeply in love with that it becomes a piece of who you are. If you're looking for a magical children's book review, look no further.

I listened to the audiobook of *The Children of Green Knowe* while winding wool, and it brought back so many memories of childhood magical thinking. I absolutely adored Lucy M. Boston's descriptive language, the enchanting stories, and the charming birds and animals. Listening to it made me think back to visits to my grandma's house, which always felt like a safe haven filled with comfort and unconditional love. When he arrives at Green Knowe, Tozeland's great-grandmother greets him warmly and g...

This is a beautifully written British children's classic, perfect for curling up with, especially around Christmas. Lucy M. Boston must be incredibly sensitive, an empath, or both, because the magic of nature is celebrated so perfectly. There are so many wonderful, unnamed bird characters, for example. The chaffinch might be my favorite of them all (and that includes the human characters!).If you're looking for a gentle read that transforms the natural world into a magical place (or rather, remi...

4.5 starsA terribly dated and terribly charming story about a small boy staying with his grandma in a haunted house and the adventures he has there. I remember reading *The Children of Green Knowe* by Lucy M. Boston as a child, and this time I listened to the audiobook. It's quite warm here at the moment, and the narrator had a very plummy British accent with received pronunciation, which was actually quite embarrassing when I had to slow the car near pedestrians, and they could hear it through ...

We reread *The Children of Green Knowe*, our absolute favorite book, in the lead-up to Christmas and just finished it today. This book is such a joy to read aloud. The poetic descriptions, the warm conversations, the stories shared by the fire, all interspersed with excerpts of carols, make it a truly magical story to read aloud by your own fireplace, just as Tolly and Grandmother Oldknow do by theirs.Tolly is practically an orphan. His mother is gone, and his father, remarried, is absent from h...

From the very beginning of Lucy M. Boston's enchanting children's book, *The Children of Green Knowe* (1954), seven-year-old Toseland (affectionately known as Tolly) journeys by train through the rain-soaked British countryside to spend his Christmas holidays with his great-grandmother, Mrs. Oldknow, at her ancient, castle-like home, Green Noah (whose real name is Green Knowe). Tolly, a solitary and imaginative boy, finds a kindred spirit in Mrs. Oldknow, a similarly solitary and imaginative old...

Do you remember being a kid and wishing your parents would acknowledge the universe you built around the mundane things surrounding you? That you could pretend even your apartment was a place where something magical could actually happen, like in a castle? When I was little, I was told there used to be a graveyard before they built our apartments. I was convinced for a while because of a big white cross nearby, and certainly because spooky is way better than boring when you're eight. I loved to ...

This is that rarest of all things: a perfect book. It's a beautifully told story about a little boy sent to live with his grandmother in rural England. He moves into a vast, old house, complete with whimsical topiary, an empty stable, a river, and – ghosts. It's obvious that Tolly's strange new playmates are ghosts, at least to us, but they seem as alive as anyone else in the story. The narrative moves seamlessly from present to past and back again, using the grandmother's stories, Tolly's curio...

I remember one night as a teenager, I overheard my mom going into my little sister's room because she was upset. Turns out, the book she was reading had frightened her, which, naturally, made me curious. It was *The Children of Green Knowe*, and while it didn't scare me, I absolutely loved it. I always intended to read the rest of the series but never got around to it. Now that they've been re-released with Brett Helquist's illustrations on the covers, I'm thinking I must get the whole series by...