Marianne Dreams

[Beachtastic]

Did anyone else love this book as a child?

For some reason I've been thinking about it the past couple of days and will read it again (paperback on order!).

Such a clever and interesting plot. Not to mention scary!

annabookbel.net/revisiting-childrens-classic-1958-marianne-dreams-catherine-storr/

Ah yes, @CatChant Edward Eager.

@CatChant Another lesser known Nesbit I’m very fond of is The Wonderful Garden which is quite unusual in that the magic is ambivalent- there’s a rational explanation for all of it. House of Arden is the one with the Mouldiwarp isn’t it?

@CatChant , another huge fan of E Nesbit. They are my comfort reading.

Incidentally, in the "Magicians Nephew", I think it starts off with dating something like, "when the Bastables were still looking for treasure in Lewishamn Road".

I loved that. Tying up the setting so well.

It does!

Drawn in because I adored Marianne Dreams, although it gave me nightmares. I enjoyed the Chinese Egg but did not like Marianne and Mark. Charlotte Sometimes, like Tom’s Midnight Garden, made me think about the impact of time and the feeling of loss.I love how lots of Diana Wynne Jones fans have made it here too - she really is a superb author. It is strange how lots of books today are just less satisfying although not all of them. Frances Hardinge (spelling?) has the same depth and I am very fond of Percy Jackson despite not being quite so thought provoking.

Does anyone remember a time slip story where a girl went back to the time of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee? And one called Romansgrove, where the children went back in time to Victorian/Edwardian times. I also enjoyed a spooky book called A Candle in her Room.

One More River was fantastic. I could be wrong but I vaguely remember a sequel, although I don’t think it had quite the same impact.

@pollyhemlock Yes, you’re right, the Mouldiwarp is from The House of Arden and what a grumpy ‘fairy’ he is - just like the Psammead, now I come to think of it. I loved The Wonderful Garden too, and you’re right again; it is the only one that has a possible rational explanation for anything magical. I wonder why.

@LadyBrendaLast Yes, it did place the setting for The Magician’s Nephew very well for a child, didn’t it. And I think it was also a way for CS Lewis of acknowledging E Nesbit’s influence on his work. He’d grown up reading and loving her stories - one of which has a child getting into another world through a wardrobe.

I must apologise. I’ve only just realised that I managed to muddle up two book threads and so started chuntering on about Monica Dickens’ adult books on the wrong thread! I did like her children’s books too, especially the World’s End series - living with lots of animals and no bossy grown-ups!

I both love and am petrified by Marianne Dreams.
Also love The Owl Service which I think I skimmed and disliked as a child, but came back to later.

Absolutely adored it

Candle in Her Room is available on Amazon (1 copy) if you have £2000 to spare!

@CatChant
I must apologise. I’ve only just realised that I managed to muddle up two book threads and so started chuntering on about Monica Dickens’ adult books on the wrong thread!

Don't apologise, I'm certainly not policing this thread 😂 and have just finished Rumer Godden's Kingfishers Catch Fire, the first I've ever tried of her adult fiction. I was really impressed with it, lots of dark and light layered in unexpected ways. I've just noticed that Amazon describes it as a "poignant story of the conflict between idealism and reality" - which probably explains why it appealed to me so much (still waiting for the day when reality wins out over idealism in my own little bubble of nonsense!) 🤦🏻‍♀️😆

My copy got damp and I threw it away. I could have sold it for a bargain £100! I wish publishers would put old books on ebook format!

What age is this book suitable for please?

Do you mean Marianne Dreams? I read it at eight but it is a little scary with the stones. I’d probably say 10-12: closer to 12 for a sensitive child, and nearer to 10 for one who is not too bothered by spooky/slightly scary stories.

One that hasn't been mentioned yet is In a Blue Velvet Dress, 1972 (Catherine Sefton, pen name of Martin Waddell). Like Marianne Dreams, there is an element of dreams and real life overlapping at times. As a child I identified with the main character's horror at going on holiday and finding she had accidentally left all her books at home. The book is partly a ghost story, with an elegant solution to the problem of having nothing to read.

Jane Gardam's early books were published as children's/YA books, and I read and enjoyed them when I was quite young. So did my mum - I think she read some of them because I had them - first as library books, before finding my own copies of some of them later.

A Long Way From Verona is an excellent book about a reader who wants to write. Others first published as YA are Bilgewater, A Few Fair Days and The Summer After the Funeral. I have two or three of these in Abacus editions, obviously aimed at adults who'd enjoyed some of her later work, and one still as a kid's edition.

Thank you for mentioning The Saturdays - I had never heard of it but it was only 99p on kindle so I gave it a go and loved it!

Yes, I read all these as a teenager and loved them. In the opposite direction, sort of, I also used to love pre-Tracey Beaker Jacqueline Wilson - she published lots of really quite cerebral, often quite dark, novels about bookish introverted teens - Waiting for the Sky to Fall, Amber, This Girl ....lots of characters with rich but often verging on dangerous imaginative lives. You never see these any more and she never mentions them, but she was really good in the 80s, before her characterization became as simplistic as Nick Sharrat's smiley face/sad face illustrations (sorry, any fans of her more recent work, but I've never understood why she seems so resolutely to have dumbed down)

Loved Jane Gardam

In the early 1990s I read some of Jacqueline Wilson's early books published for adults, and published by Penguin under a crime imprint - there were about 6 of them. I think I still have a couple but I'm not sure where they are - I have far more books than I have shelf space for - or what I had bought, probably from charity shops, or borrowed from libraries.

I was reading some articles on her and Wikipedia mentions that she had already published about 40 (!) books before she really broke through. That presumably includes those old crime novels, which looked as if they were published in the late 70s, and the early YA books. I think she must have stuck to the formula of the books that were a hit.

@elkiedee I love Jane Gardam’s books and Bilgewater and Long Way from Verona are among my all time favourites. She is so good at depicting awkward academic teenage girls who feel they’re never going to fit in.

Yes I've read a few of those. I got really cross at the blurb on the back of Picture Imperfect which suggests Think Again was her first adult book.

For those who like to reread childhood favourites, I spotted another American classic on Kindle at 99p - From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler - about two children who run away to a New York City museum.

Mixed Up Files is a great book. So unusual and quirky.

Oh this is such a lovely thread. So many of my childhood favourites mentioned: Honor Arundel (A Family Failing, the Emma books, The Longest Weekend - all seemed very grown up when I was at primary school), Alan Garner (may well make a visit to his house, thanks for the recommendation), the Carbonel books, Monica Dickens (loved the World’s End books) Nicholas Fisk (Grinny was definitely one of my favourite books as a child), Penelope Lively. Did anyone else read Paul Zindel? (The Undertaker’s Gone Bananas). I’m going to have to reread a couple of these soon as the thread has brought the memories back!

I have a copy of Marianne and Mark if anyone wants it, it’s not one I’m going to reread so would be happy to send it on.