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/

@Ponks
I remember Paul Zindel and have several of his books on my children's/YA shelves upstairs.

If no one else has asked already, I would be really interested in the copy of Marianne and Mark, please - I think you can probably PM me through the MN system here, or I can to you.

@elkiedeeI’ll see if I can DM you for your address

If you like The Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler perhaps you remember another E L Konigsburg, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth and Me, about two girls trying to learn to be witches. Eating raw onions came into it! Much as I wanted to be a witch as a child I remember balking at the idea of eating a whole raw onion.

I did but I read it a bit later and I think probably only once - I still have my Puffin copy of Mixed Up Files and an ex library hardback of Jennifer, Hecate....

The original US title is even more of a mouthful - Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Try remembering that in the bookshop!

@CatChant I love your username by the way.

@elkiedee Thank you! Charmed Life was the first Diana Wynne Jones I ever came across. It was bought in Woolworths after a trip to the dentist and it was worth umpteen dental visits of the most uncomfortable sort. It was so enthralling, so imaginative and so rule-breakingly unconventional. I read it from cover to cover immediately I got home and didn’t want the story to ever end. It will always be special to me because it introduced me to DWJ’s wonderful stories. There is no one like her. I don’t think there ever will be.

OMG this gave me nightmares as a child. I have never finished it! I may go back to it now I'm older. I still think if it from time to time!

This is very true. Most children’s fantasy is derivative ( this is not a criticism- there’s nothing wrong with drawing on previous traditions) but DWJ is genuinely and utterly original .

I completely agree. We had The Ogre Downstairs as our class reader in Year 5 and again in Year 7. I didn’t mind as you can read her books over and over again and still find new things to think about. I also look for favourite scenes and lines. DWJ was so original and talented. I find it hard to pick my favourite.

I love them all! I don't think I've ever read a DWJ that I didn't like. Agree that she was amazingly original. What a talent.

Fellow Green Knowe lovers, there is a lovely article in the Financial Times about The Manor at Hemingford Grey, which was the inspiration for the stories. It’s well researched and has super photographs really capturing the magical atmosphere.

You can find it here - https://www.ft.com/content/e3569630-f753-4a35-9126-5f1c01d333c4

I visited it some years ago and it was like walking into Green Knowe. I hope I can go again soon.

Lovely article, thanks for sharing @CatChant. I’ve always wanted to visit there, must make the effort to do it soon in case it closes to visitors.

I love the detail that she "had a predilection for dirndls" - no wonder the locals thought she was a spy!

I'm intrigued by "Visitors continue to enjoy records played on a 1920s gramophone, whose giant horn is made out of old telephone directories." I can't quite picture the horn!!!

ETA: Just realised the horn is featured in the main photo! Well, I'd never have guessed it was made out of old telephone directories...

Thank you for this lovely thread!

Really enjoying this thread! I loved Marianne Dreams, Tom's Midnight Garden, The Green Knowe books, Charlotte Sometimes, The Ghosts (Amazing Mr Blunden), The Chinese Egg etc.

I also loved Fifteen by Beverly Cleary, which I don't think anyone has mentioned. It's about a fifteen-year-old girl's first experience of dating in the US in the 1950s. I borrowed it from the library as a teenager in the 1970s, and loved it. I bought a copy a couple of years ago, and it still takes me back to what it was like being a teenager! I also enjoyed her other books - The Luckiest Girl, Jean and Johnny and Sister of the Bride.

I've just thought of some more books I loved, by Andre Norton - Octagon Magic, Lavender-Green Magic and Red Hart Magic.

Andre Norton is fab. I loved Star Ka'at.

Just jumping onto this thread to say the Emma books, Charlotte Sometimes and Cold Christmas by Nina Beachcroft were stand out books from my childhood which I read several times.

Charlotte Sometimes made me cry so much.

I was obsessed by Cold Christmas; it resonated so much with me - being taken to my parents friend's houses and sort of being expected to go off and play with unknown children. And wishing the adults would have had enough soon! So obsessed was I with Cold Christmas I was desperate for it to be made into one of those BBC serial adaptations that they used to show in the 70s and 80s. I even very vaguely looked into buying the rights for a screen adaptation when I was an adult.

@tobee Cold Christmas was fantastic. So many of these books could have been great BBC Sunday TV (like The Box of Delights, Green Knowe and Narnia). I enjoyed Archer’s Goon too. I’d watch them if they did more adaptations!

Was there another book by the same author where the girl ended up living for a while with another aunt and uncle and her cousins? I remember being sympathetically horrified at the uncle and aunt removing all bedside lamps as they didn’t approve of reading in bed. And they were put out because the girl - an orphan - was ahead of their own daughter at school etc. Any memories triggered for anyone ? I’d love to read it again.

Doesn't ring any bells for me... but who needs a bedside lamp to read?! One of the joys of my childhood was reading by torchlight under the bedclothes, a little cosy tent.

I think this may be Pauline by Margaret Storey, not Honor Arundel. Pauline is orphaned and goes to live with unsympathetic Uncle Harry who resents the fact that she is a bookish academic type. I don’t have a copy so can’t check about the bedside light but it sounds likely.

@EvelynBeatrice @pollyhemlock Yes, it's Pauline by Margaret Storey. "There was no bedside lamp. Uncle Harry didn't believe in reading in bed." It was when they were staying in the Lake District he removed all the lamps, causing Pauline to bash her head on the way to the loo in the night, and to be called a juggins by him. I think Uncle Harry is one of the creepiest, most horribly repugnant characters I've ever encountered, and I can't analyse why. You can tell I've kept my copy.

@LadyAddle You are lucky to have kept your copy because they’re almost nonexistent! I would really like to read it as I don’t think I have and Uncle H sounds like a fascinatingly ghastly character.