Green Knowe

A little boy was sitting in the corner of a railway carriage looking out at the rain, which was splashing against the windows and blotching downwards in an ugly, dirty way. He was not the only person in the carriage, but the others were strangers to him. He was alone as usual. There were two women opposite him, a fat one and a thin one, and they talked without stopping, smacking their lips between sentences and seeming to enjoy what they said as much as if it were something to eat. They were knitting all the time, and whenever the train stopped the click-clack of their needles was loud and clear like two clocks.

-- from The Children at Green Knowe, by L.M. Boston

It is a rare children's book that opens with the sense of loneliness and alienation and despairing boredom that everyone who is not lying remembers from childhood, but Lucy Boston was a rare writer. Set in Boston's 900-year old house in England, the Green Knowe books are remarkably true to a child's perspective on what is exciting, what is horrible, and what is worth hiding in order to save.

There is a great deal of magic in these books -- the children who visit the house hear the ghosts of children who lived there in the past; toys move on their own accord or with help from the ghosts; and sometimes at night it is possible to see into the past. There is also a great deal of the real magic of childhood discovery -- watching a field mouse weave a hanging nest of grass, finding treasures in river mud, meeting adults who still wonder at the world. Green Knowe is a haven from all that is regimented and deadening in the outside world, like the oppressive mechanical world of trains and steel and clocks in that opening paragraph.

On a day like today, full of dark rain, I wish I were Tolly, the little boy from the train, being ferried over flood waters by row boat to an ancient house and a wise and kind grandmother like Mrs. Oldknow:

Mr. Boggis handed him the lantern and told him to kneel up in the bows with it and shout it they were likely to bump into anything. They rowed round two corners in the road and then in at a big white gate. Toseland waved the lantern about and saw trees and bushes standing in the water, and presently the boat was rocked by a quite strong current and the reflection of the lantern streamed away in electric jigsaw shapes and made gold rings round the tree trunks. At last they came to a still pool reaching to the steps of the house, and the keel of the boat grated on gravel. The windows were all lit up, but it was too dark to see what kind of house it was, only that it was high and narrow like a tower.

"Come along in," said Mr. Boggis, "I'll show you in. I'd like to see Mrs. Oldknow's face when she sees you."