Children's Books > L Children's Books > M

Advantages: LYRICAL, GENTLE, A JOY TO READ AND A TIMELESS CLASSIC.
Disadvantages: NONE WHAT SO EVER!

Anne of Green Gables A novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This edition published by George G Harap & Co Ltd. First published in Great Britain in 1925. 256 pages long *****Kate Meets Anne for the First Time***** When I was 11, during a particularly boring Latin Lesson, in a top floor, stuffy classroom, in deepest, coldest December, I discovered a book that would change my reading habits forever. From a young age I had loved books, as much for the ...
...enough to read all about Anne Shirley and her madcap adventures in Avonlea! *****The Book***** Anne Shirley is an orphan. She is adopted by mistake by brother and sister Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. They thought they were adopting a boy until red-headed Anne shows up - being the kindly souls they are, they take her on and welcome her into their home, Green Gables - a farm in Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island, off the coast of Novia Scotia . What ... Read review

Advantages: Lovely story, delightful characters, suitable for children or adults
Disadvantages: Letters somewhat disrupt the flow; old-fashioned language at times

...her particularly attractive. Poor Emily is not the kind of child they expect; she speaks her mind, she expects to be treated with respect and honesty, and she wants more than anything to be loved. This book is set in Canada around a hundred years ago before consumption (TB) became curable with antibiotics, and before children were expected to have much of a voice. The author LM Montgomery is best known for her eight 'Anne' books which began with ...
...I did like Emily herself as a character. She is different from Anne in that she has had a very happy early childhood rather than being in a series of orphanages. Emily's relatives are quite well-off, too, and can well afford to keep her even though they don't particularly want her. Her imagination is more fanciful than Anne's; there's no need for her to long for a more interesting name, or for a family. Instead she imagines anthropomorphisms: the ... Read review

Advantages: A pleasant read, quite thought-provoking, enjoyable if you like the genre
Disadvantages: Not much plot, rather rapid passing of the years, characters didn't totally grab me

...Island in the 1920s. Pat is eight years old when the story opens, but it's fairly clear immediately that this book isn't really intended for children of that age. We meet Pat in conversation with Judy, a somewhat elderly Irish lady who has worked for the family since Pat's father was a child. But we don't just read Pat's side of the conversation, we get Judy's as well, and her thoughts behind what they're talking about. In the opening chapter we ...
...that Judy is afraid that Pat - currently the youngest of the family - will find this distressing. In those days children were evidently not informed of an impending new baby, nor even that babies grow inside their mothers. So Judy tells Pat that she will find the baby in her parsley bed... which seems to me a highly unlikely tale to be swallowed, even by this imaginative and dreamy child. Pat isn't a clone of 'Anne', however. She's a distinct individual ... Read review

Advantages: Quality, different, yet familiar.
Disadvantages: Too short?

...Fair enough, the TV series of Anne of Greengables was touching and well-made, yet disappointing to the devoted reader of the series of books. But Blue Castle is simply devine. Valancy Stirling - the main character in the book - is a pitied spinster who never really had a chance to be anything else. She might be under thirty, but during the turn of 19th and 20th century EVERYONE was married by then. Shame on her. Valancy's family that consists of ...
...Valancy has always been in the shadow of her pretty cousin and the mock of the family because of her 'mundane' looks and apologizing nature. She really seems to be a pathetic and miserable being - until the doctor (not the family doctor... eek!) accidentally sends her a note saying she's suffering from an incurable heart disease. That's when the bombs start flying. Valancy speaks her mind out for the first time ever, butchers her non-flowering rose ... Read review

Advantages: Lovely illustrations, catchy story
Disadvantages: Maybe a bit too long for a younger child

The Princess and The Wizard - another wonderful book by Julia Donaldson. This is another one of my daughter's faves although perhaps the story is a little bit long for her at the moment but she loves the pictures, especially the glittery ones. It's the story of Princess Eliza, who gets captured & whisked away (on her 7th birthday of all days!) by a wicked wizard who likes turning people to stone. Luckily before she is taken away, her fairy godmother ...
...colour and changing her shape'. The wizard isn't impressed and replies 'changing her colour and changing her shape will never help Princess Eliza escape'. So Princess Eliza gets seven chances to escape and each day she changes herself into something new, such as a blue fish, yellow chick, green grasshopper... But the wizard always finds her and takes her back to his castle to do some horrible work for him. On her final chance to escape, Eliza realises ... Read review