This is a beautifully written book, in which the author recounts memories of his childhood in West Country England at the end of World War One. Laurie Lee's mother struggled to bring up a large family on her own, as they were abandoned by her husband, who chose to live his life away from them in London.

Lee paints an evocative picture of rural life as seen through a child's eyes: the everyday trials, the local characters, humerous and moving incidents, even the colours and smells are conveyed to the reader.

This type of writing is part of a powerful and enduring image in English popular culture - one of a pre-modern rural "ideal" England, now forever lost. I suppose you could read "Cider with Rosie" with that kind of romantic eye, but in truth this is a far more honest work: Lee states that "our village was no pagan paradise, neither were we conscious of showing tolerance". Crime, and other social problems, did exist. Infant mortality was high by modern standards (Lee's early life was punctuated by serious illnesses and one of his sisters died in early childhood). Education was barely minimal. Living conditions were often poor (I doubt that many people would think that finding a dead mouse inside their loaf of bread was a quaint event).

A very good read, not only for the delightful prose and insight into a child's life, but for the realities it reveals.

I happen to live in the Cotswolds, the setting for this beautiful book, this Monet of literature. And, complying with the below reviews, I have to say that Stroud has become a concrete river, choked with litter, sidelined with Burger Stars, neon lights; a MacDonalds is in the blue print stages. Hills are lined with new developments. It's like, and I quote my mother, "A disease is spreading."

Yet there are places untouched by Americanisms, consumerism, electricity (and here I apologise, as this becomes less of a review, more an account of personal experience). But there are still rivers afloat with leaves, valleys deep that welcome sunsets. They frost the sky in winter, burn it by summer.

"There's beauty in decay," as someone said. Haven't got a clue who. But there you go. Although dying of shallow needs and commercial interests, snippets of the old way can be found. And in all their glory, too.

This book was required reading during my childhood and, of course, I couldn't have dragged myself more slowly through it. How wise we become with age. This is an astonishing book. Lee is such a master of description that, after only a few pages, you slowly start to smell the fresh country air and hear the languid sounds of summer as you are inescabably drawn into the world of his childhood - a world that you realize has already faded into the mists of history. But this special time has not been lost - it has been captured forever in this irreplacable series of pictures. The people in these stories become more real than seems possible with only pen and ink: his characterizations are as clever as anything by Dickens or Dostoevski, and he catches the very essence of the sights, sounds and people around him with a charm unmatched by any other English writer. But this is not a story-book universe: the people in his young life have all the frailty, vanity, delight and tragedy that you would expect in any small community - but what other has been crystallized with such talent and wisdom. A wonderful work of art.

This book was probably the second book I ever read as a second
grader in 1945. It took me into a mysterious and fascinating world which captivated my imagination ever since. Subsequently I read every Bobbsey Twin book I could get my hands on. Extremely well done series by an outstanding children's author.

Cider with Rosie is about Laurie Lee's boyhood in a small village in Gloucestershire, England in the late teens and early twenties of this century. It is not only the shared nostalgia most of us have for our early years that gives this book it's poignancy, but the quality of the writing itself. It has been described as a 'prose poem that flashes and winks', and certainly most people I know who've read it have been moved and delighted by the writing. If you liked 'Dandelion Wine' by Ray Bradbury then try this, and see what you've been missing.

I checked this book out of my public library thinking it was a collection of stories in addition to "Cider with Rosie". It is not.

According to the book itself, "The Edge of Day" is the title for the first American edition of "Cider with Rosie". The only glaring difference between "Cider" and "Edge" is that in "Edge" Mr. Lee names his brothers and sisters in his dedication, while in "Cider" he simply writes "to my brothers and sisters the whole and the half".

THIS BOOK TAKES YOU INTO THE ENGLAND OF LONG AGO WHEN THE MODERN WORLD WAS FAST APPROACHING. ONE STARTS TO FEEL THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, IT IS SUCH A CHARMING BOOK FULL OF INNOCENCE, LOVE AND A GOOD CHILDHOOD FILLED WITH MAKING DO WITH WHAT YOU HAVE.

Creative youngsters of a somewhat higher age-range than the one recommended, about 8-15 years really, will find themselves inspired by the account of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' early struggle to find her forte as a writer, in this latest of the Creative Minds Biography series. Sprinkled with finely detailed, full-page charcoal drawings, it also draws an engaging parallel between the young Marjorie's life on a family farm and Jody Baxter's in "The Yearling." Marjorie's father Arthur Kinnan nurtured her love of nature just as Penny Baxter did for Jody, which gives us a fascinating insight into the true-life sources for Kinnan Rawlings' famous creations. The highs and lows of her life and career in rural Florida are then undramatically yet sensitively described: the book's tone is quiet and true, as clear and sweet as a brook in Rawlings' fiction.

The lead story Freudian Slip, by Sheri McGregor, was touching. Molly and Been showed how akward mixing business with pleasure can be, but Molly said all she needed to say in her "opps e-mail" and a happy, hopeful ending for the two. Maybe more romantic sparks would fly if each of us let down our guard and had a "Freudian Slip" with our special someone every now and again.
The other stories were enjoyable with each Author spinning her own tale of romantic woe and conquest of the human heart. The holiday's can bring out the best or worst in the emotional tango of human hearts. This collection of stories is a keeper, giving one hope that the next holiday can bring about possibilities.

"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" is the story of Laurie Lee's travels (mostly on foot) from rural West Country England to London, and then through Spain in 1935-36. It's a joy to read (as was "Cider With Rosie"), and Lee recalls a world now lost due to the rise of the motor car and the arrival of the "global village": for example, I doubt that the arrival of a foreigner in a Spanish village would now be quite the event it was in 1935.

The majority of the book is devoted to Spain, and indeed this for me was the best part. It's a Spain in which Lee sees the faded glory of the past, but at the same time a backwardness reminiscent of descriptions of the Third World countries of today. Lee was no romantic - he devotes space to descriptions of the grinding poverty and social tensions he saw.

I puzzled over some parts of the book, however. Lee does not describe how he managed to pick up a working knowledge of Spanish. I suppose that youth helped (he was 20), and necessity can be the mother of education. If the dialogue was being reconstructed at some distance in time from the actual events, it might be best to consider that it was Lee's recollection of what might have been said rather than a truly accurate account.

Also, I was disappointed that while Lee followed the course of the Guadalquivir to Seville, he fails to mention the city of Cordoba. Did he visit it, or give it a miss?

In all though, a very enjoyable read.

"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" [1], author Laurie Lee recounted his first sojourn away from home. At age 19, our narrator-biographer, walked out of his village at Stroud, Gloucestershire, and headed toward London. As Lee himself recalled, he was 'still soft at the edges' when he said farewell to his mother (a poignant scene in the opening chapter). All he had with him that Sunday morning in June 1934 was 'a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese.'

After nearly a year of living and working in London as a cement laborer, Lee decided it was time to move on. He bought a one-way ticket and sailed to Spain. He settled for Spain because he had had an introduction to Spanish. All he could speak then, Lee admitted, was only one Spanish phrase: 'Will you please give me a glass of water?'

In July 1935, Laurie Lee landed in northwestern Spain. For many months he roamed the exotic and history-filled landscape, living off his music and the kindness of the people he came to love. From Vigo, he wandered southward through the New Castile region (Segovia, Madrid, Toledo). By December, he came to the coastal region of Andalusia (Cordova, Seville, Granada). There, Lee holed up at a Castillo hotel until the outbreak of the civil war in July 1936.

This author's second autobiographical sketch could have been subtitled "From Spain With Love." His inimitable poetic description of the Spanish landscape and its inhabitants is sensual as it is lyrical. The warmth and beauty of this passage [no pun], for example, undulates this reviewer's reveries, not of memories but of what has never been: 'When twilight came I slept where I was, on the shore or some rock-strewn headland, and woke to the copper glow of the rising sun coming slowly across the sea. Mornings were pure resurrection, which I could watch sitting up, still wrapped like a corpse in my blanket, seeing the blood-warm light soak back into the Sierras, slowing re-animating their ash-grey cheeks, and feeling the cold of the ground drain away beneath me as the sunrise reached my body.'

Lee's "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" and its third autobiograhy "A Moment In War" have had a farther reach than any of his other celebrated works. These writings have been adapted to music to which Charles Baudelaire could only spoke of metaphorically. In June of 2002, the Allegri String Quartet in The Salisbury Festival (UK) premiered "A Walk Into War." A musical piece which the quartet had commissioned based on the two latter biographies.

The author once wrote that autobiography is 'a celebration of life and an attempt to hoard its sensations...trophies snatched from the dark... to praise the life I'd had and so preserve it, and to live again both the good and the bad'. By all measures he had not done badly. He was and is the one modern author whose memoirs have transcended into the realms of music and visual arts ('Cider With Rosie', a 1998 film by John Mortimer).

1] Laurie Lee's autobiographical trilogy - Book 1:"Cider with Rosie" (1959); Book 2:"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" (1969); and Book 3: "A Moment of War" (1991).

It's a shame that this fine book is not in print. Those going after used editions--and you should--are encouraged to look for the 1985 reprint stunningly illustrated with classic paintings of Spanish life. But back to why you want to read this: in 1934, a young, naive Englishman who had never been out of his rural neighborhood packed up his violin and went walking, first to London, a hundred miles east and then via boat to Spain where he walked from Vigo in the north down to the southern coast. I'm having trouble shelving the book: is it a straight memoir? Certainly it is very much about the writer's encounter with the world at a historically significant time and about his own growth process. Or is it a travelogue? It is a very accurate account of the unique Spanish culture and countryside. Although written more than 30 years after the actual experience, Lee's account conveys a fresh sense of wonder and discovery and resists overlaying too much foreshadowing and hindsight. His style is lyrical, vivid as the blue Spanish sky and honest. He is refreshingly free of nationalism and prejudice.

Not the most imaginative or stimulating approach, especially for younger children with a strong creative bent, but it gets the job done and provides a strong foundation for using more creative, play-oriented techniques.

I purchased this title because I needed something more effective than what my child's first grade teacher was using. Step by Step Phonics is very easy to use. It is set up so even a parent who isn't familiar with teaching the reading process can use it with little or no effort.

My daughter quickly learned the phonics patterns and sight words in each unit. She can now pick up any book and read on her own. What I liked best about this book, children learn phenomenal spelling and writing skills while they are learning to read. My daughter really enjoyed learning and illustrating the poems too. It is a great program to use with your child and for primary teachers. I'm glad I found it when I was looking through Amazon's titles last fall. Thank you so much. Now that my child can read, I have one less thing to be concerned with as a parent. I highly recommend this title.

I have used this program with my first grade Title One children. ( These are children who do not qualify for special classes, but need extra help in Reading) It works, it is thorough, and the children really enjoy it! My ESL (English Second Language) students also have improved greatly through this program.

Down in Stroud we have few famous people to cheer about and most of those are invisible (Princess Anne) or vulgar comers-in, so Laurie Lee always had great celebrity in the whole area. His 'Cider with Rosie' is legendary, while 'As I walked out one Midsummer's Morning' maintains the arcadian magic. Indeed, I thought much of him on my own teenage jaunts round Europe. As louts we would meet him up the Woolpack in Slad and occasionally throw pebbles into his beer. We followed his politics, too. Class differences in the country are even starker than in town. This title was one I had awaited for a long time. I had read Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' and expected something as inspiring, but this is definitely the work of an older man, looking back with indulgence and sorrow at his youth. There is no heroism, indeed there is no ideology, and instead we have a sad book, without the charm of 'As I walked out..' or the commitment of 'Homage..' This particular crusader lost his way long before the war was over.. I lost interest in the book long before the end.

"A Moment of War" is the third book in Laurie Lee's autobiographical trilogy. Lee arrives in a Spain which is deep in civil war, wanting to "do his bit" for the Republican cause, but finds that he's not welcomed with open arms and the war is far grimmer than he'd expected.

It's a bleak story, told many years after the actual events. There's no heroic romanticism or political fervour in this account. Even though "A Moment of War" is a short book, its grim realism prevents it from being an uplifting read. But, I felt that Lee's version of events, bereft of nostalgia (except perhaps for the women he slept with) rang true. Here, war is characterised by deprivation, chaos, suffering and utter confusion. Of course, Lee's fine prose makes the journey all the easier too.

G Rodgers

I do not know much else about the author, Larie Lee, but in "A Moment of War" he certainly led a charmed life. Those who have studied the Spanish Civil War know that the level of hatred, distrust, brutality, and revenge was excessive in this conflict. Indeed, they mirrored that of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia which, not coincidently, exemplify the two main factions in this civil war.

Right from the beginning the author steps into the middle of this tension. He is held in suspicion by the very side he has come to fight for. The "in and out of favor" status that he holds gives this book an even greater flavor of the conflict he writes of.

The book is brief, in part because the authors's tenure in Spain was brief. However, through his experiences and observations, we are able to understand much about this microcism of Twentieth Century European politics. It is a memoir written with a poetic style which allows the author to say so much in so few pages. As an account of the Spanish Civil War, it ranks up there with Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia".