I remember reading these books on my summer vacations to my grandparents...I was bored and the local town librarian recommended them to me. Many years later, looks for books on mysterious houses for a nephew, I remembered and re-discovered them. My favorite is An Enemy At Green Knowe. The story is full of twists and turns and quite frightening events, with the excitement lasting just long enough to tantalize the reader. You feel the house itself is a living breathing character, as is true of the entire series. This is the kind of book an adult needs to put in the hands of the student -- as is true with A Wrinkle In Time -- and sit back while the child becomes wrapped in the world of Green Knowe. A superior children's book!

Why is this book out of print?

In this, the fifth Green Knowe book, Tolly AND Ping come to spend the summer with Tolly's great grandmother, Mrs. Oldknow, and do battle with the forces of evil as personified by a newneighbor, Melanie Powers.

Absolutely wonderful -- my favorite part is the very end, where everything comes together serendipitously to defeat Miss Powers, leaving you to feel that all is right with the world.

Like Tove Jansson's Moomin books & Arthur Ransome's Swallows & Amazons series, L.M. Boston's Green Knowe books remain underappreciated by American readers. Even so, these three series are arguably of vastly superior quality to the ubiquitous Harry Potter, Narnia, and Roald Dahl books. An Enemy at Green Knowe is the 5th in this series of 6 which do not need to be read sequentially. Tolly, the protagonist of the first 2 books is now united w/ Ping, the hero of books 3 & 4. Those familiar w/ the series will know that the "shadow protagonist" is Mrs. Oldknow, Tolly's great-grandmother & owner of the manse Green Knowe & its magical environs.

Green Knowe is a place whose past haunts its present. Mrs. Oldknow relates to the 2 boys an incident out of Green Knowe's past, when the mysterious Dr. Vogel took up residence at Green Knowe as the family tutor in the year 1630. Dr. Vogel became caught up in some nefarious activity, and as the boys soon learn, the evil force that was unleashed by Dr. Vogel still lurks in the present day. They must confront this challenge to Green Knowe and its proprietor in a series of hair-raising events -- although written for children, this book is not for the faint of heart.

The Green Knowe books differ from one another quite a bit, but in my estimation this one ranks w/ Children of Green Knowe as the best. While that one was delightful for its innocence, this one is notable for the way in which it gives the reader chills.

Boston's prose is graceful & intelligent & is recommended for the literate grade schooler. These books are the logical starting point for a reader to progress to the works of Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, and Robert Holdstock.

No mention of the Green Knowe books would be complete w/o mention of the marvelous illustrations by Peter Boston. Unfortunately, the Odyssey Classic reprints chose hideously garish covers, although to their credit they preserved Peter Boston's interior illustrations. Still, their choice of covers probably explains why these books are now out of print.

In 'Mr. Jones meet the Master', you are allowed the privelege of reading just a few of Dr. Marshall's sermons. Being only sixteen, I have not found many friends my age ready to read this book, and that is awful. When most people (Especially teenagers) hear that you're reading 'a book of sermons', they think 'boring!' Not so with this book. Last summer, I decided to read 'Mr. Jones, meet the Master', and I literally could not put it down. Dr. Marshall has a captivating writing style that keeps you reading and keeps you thinking. I really love the way he pricks your conscience and lays it on the line. I really got things right with God after reading 'Mr. Jones, Meet the Master'. If you're looking for something to boost your Christian walk, please, READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can safely promise you won't be dissapointed. I have recommended this book to everyone I know, and now I recommend it to you! And if you enjoy this book, I also recommend 'A man called Peter', which is the biography of Peter Marshall. Though he went home to the 'Chief' years before I was born, I can't wait to meet him in Heaven! Beg, borrow, or buy a copy of this book TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A book to be kept near during your life. Dynamic presentations of thoughts brought out by stories of our everyday lives. If you feel removed from The Lord, this book will point the way, and give you a very gentle push in that direction. I truly regret the fact Peter Marshall left to be with the "Chief" so early in his life. I wish I could have heard him preach, and meet him.

I am planning on buying five additional copies for my children to keep in their homes.

Thank you Rev. and Mrs. Marshall

This collection of Peter Marshall's sermons is thought provoking and deepening for those who would grow in their Christian faith! I found the sermon labeled "By Invitation of Jesus" to be excellent. This is not a dry series of discourses, but a living breathing set of gems! Highly recommended.

Houser is part biography and part intellectual history of the early days of idealsm and activism in the housing movement. Oberlander and Newbrun are effective in using a sensitive telling of the life of Catherine Bauer to evoke a sense in which housing policy today has lost its way despite the foundations laid by Ms.Bauer and her colleagues. This book is a must read for those interested in reviving American housing policies.

This book is not only required reading for anyone interested in public housing, but also very enjoyable as a lively account of a most attractive and courageous woman. It is fun to read about her amatory exploits on her first trip to Europe, exciting to read about her successes in public life, and sad to find out about her tragic death. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in a remarkable woman's career.

Mainstream Christian people will be very familiar with the name, if not the writings, of Catherine Marshall. Her husband, the great Scottish orator, Rev. Peter Marshall, was Chaplain of the U. S. Senate, and a powerful man of God. He was the light of Catherine's life, and died too soon! When your heart is so broken, the grief so deep, that you cannot eat, cannot smile or stop crying, then this book is for you. I lost my father after a 7 week illness, and ONLY this book, not scripture, not friends, but ONLY this book helped me to understand that I was not alone in the depth of my anguish. My Dad was the only man in my life and today, 18 months later, I still cry daily. But Catherine, who opened up her own wounds to reach out in love and faith to help others, touched me and I began to heal just then. When I was angry at the doctors, this book helped. When I was angry at my family, this book helped. When I was angry at God, this book gave me hope again. You will want to get a copy for yourself and purchase another to have on hand for a friend. Thanks Catherine, I am sure heaven has long since erased your heartache. I look forward to that day too. God bless you dear readers, one and all.

An excellent book on the healing process of grieving after a spouse's death. Includes faith, learning to rely on others, and explains the slow healing of deep grief. Excellent on teaching children how to grieve.

I read the book 'A man called Peter' last summer. It was a wonderful book, and I LOVED it!!!!!!!!! Then I decided to read some sermons by Dr. Marshall. I checked 'The best of Peter Marshall' out at my library and literally could not put the book down! I must say, they were at times challenging and convicting, but that's exactly what I needed. I love the way he got right to the point and said what you needed to hear without beating around the bush, but yet wasn't overbearing or boring. His sermons are full of humor and at times I found myself laughing out loud. I HIGHLY recommend this book, whether you have read 'A man called Peter', or have never even heard of Peter Marshall. You will enjoy this book if you are seeking God's will for your life.

Browne KD, Hanks H, Stratton P, Hamilton C, eds. Early prediction and prevention of child abuse. A handbook. Chichester: John Wiley, 2002, 382 pages. ... (softcover).

This book is a new and updated version of a book published in1988 on the prevention of child abuse and neglect in the early pioneering days of child abuse research. The editors are an all British team from the University of Birmingham and Leeds with 38 contributors from the UK, USA and Australia.
There are 21 chapters devided into four sections: Prevalence and prediction, primary and secondary prevention, tertiary prevention and working with offenders.
In section I it is interesting to note that over the last 25 years, when several countries started to collect data on child abuse cases on a regular basis, there has been observed some evidence that the prevalence of child abuse has decreased. This good information can maybe be attributed to the focus on preventive public health approach that many countries have taken after too many famous cases of fatal child abuse covered by the media over time. Section II is influenced by the 1979 book by Uri Bronfenbrenner on the ecology of human development, but very much relevant still today. In section III and IV the issue is tertiary prevention with focus on not only the child and family, but also the offenders.
Much has happened since 1988 in many countires for a better prevention, intervention and switch to a comprehensive child health policy, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
I especially liked the chapter by David Olds et al from Colorado on his last 24 years of research on nurse home visiting in the prenatal and infant period. Here you will find the evidence base for early intervention of the model of the nurse visitor coming home already during pregnancy and continuing during infancy. This model was implemented in Denmark in 1936 on a national level and used by nearly 100% of all pregnant women in Denmark. David Olds et al in his studies in the Appalachian region of New York State (the Elmira study) and Memphis has shown that intervention early has functional and economic benefits with the greatest impact on families at high risk. Their Nurse Family Partnership now functions in 24 states and over 200 local communities in the United States.
This book has value for a range of professionals, both in research and clinical practice, policy makers and managers working in the field of child protection, child and human development.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD
Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Medical director, Division for Mental Retardation, Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel, email: jmerrick@internet-zahav.net

This book is a well written, and moving account of the final week of Jesus. You feel as though you are walking along with Him during that time. You can feel the pain, rejection, and triumph of the crucifixion and resurrection. This is a life changing book. I was literally moved to tears the first time that I read this book.

I have only recently come to appreciate the comic strip series of Modesty, although I have been a long time fan and collector of the full-length books! I love a liberated woman and Willie Garvin is the best. I think the drawings are spectacular and give vision to the novels I know by heart.

This wonderful book escaped my notice as a child, and now I know why--the local library doesn't have a copy of this, or any of the other titles in the series! How awful!

I first found Green Knowe through a listing in the "Best Books for Children" guide. It's now my absolute favorite! I won't attempt a synopsis here--you can read the other reviews for that. But I did want to say it's absolutely MAGICAL! The story is a bit spooky, definitely old-fashioned, mysterious, and sweet, all at the same time! I have to say, as someone who reads a lot of "kiddy lit," I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in this book. In a lesser novel, the sweet old grandmother character would've turned out to be secretly evil, or a witch, or some such nonsense. Happily, she's a magical sweet old lady, and the relationship between this ancient one and her little (great) grandson is really charming.

As a matter of fact, the real conflict only comes in just at the end (with a scary scene I won't spoil), so parents who are overly-concerned that their child not read *anything* containing conflict, "bad guys," or evil, be forwarned--all is not goodness and light here. Personally, I find a story about the struggle between good and evil (in the same category as C.S. Lewis' Narnia books) uplifting. The magical "ghost" aspect of it is also treated in a way that promotes good feeling, in my opinion (I know some parents do not appreciate *any* references to the paranormal, either--so I wanted to mention it).

But for the rest of us--what a FIND the Green Knowe books are! I've bought a copy for all my neices and nephews. They're off reading Harry Potter and the like. I've read HP, by the way, just to be able to make educated remarks about it. It certainly wasn't the worst book I ever read, but I sure hope you parents are also giving your kids copies of: The Hobbit, and the rest of Tolkein, the Narnia books (Did you know C.S. Lewis and Tolkein were good friends?), the Edward Eager books (start with Half-Magic), the E. Nesbit books (talk about classics in Brit. Kid Lit!! C.S. Lewis cited Nesbit as a big influence!), and Lucy Boston's beautiful series!! Why not throw in Richard Peck's series? Wow--I've got a lot of books here--time to make a list! Happy Reading!

A lifelong reader, having children who loved to be read to allowed me to revisit books that I had loved as a child. Some had sentimental value; very few retained their magical hold on me as an adult. The Children of Green Knowe has the shimmering quality that forces one to regard the ordinary with a new hyper-awareness. Boston's beautiful prose situates one within the stone halls of her mysterious house, where wooden mice squeak, and rocking horses move without apparent animation. She gives the diurnal an extraordinary gloss: after reading her books, nothing else seems quite the same. A dream of a book. (The rest of the series is good, too. Someone should reissue these as a boxed set.)

I'd never heard of the Green Knowe books until I recently picked this one up. Too bad, this is a story I would have loved to have someone read to me when I was a kid and which I look forward to reading to my own kids. It is the magical, mysterious tale of young Master Toseland, who goes to spend the Christmas holiday with his great-grandmother Mrs. Oldknow at the family estate of Green Noah. Arriving by train, he finds the grounds flooded and the groundskeeper, Mr. Boggis, must pick him up in a rowboat to carry him to the house. It gradually becomes apparent that the house is temporally as well as physically isolated. First through overheard giggles and then by shadowy glimpses, it is revealed to Tolly (as Mrs. Oldknow calls him) that the house is inhabited by the spirits of children from generations long passed. In particular, Toby, Linnet and Alexander, three siblings felled by the plague hundreds of years earlier, romp about the building and grounds. Mrs Oldknow, who is well aware of the phenomena, tells Tolly stories about the children and the history of the manor, including a gypsy curse that was placed on a creepy topiary of Noah, which is how the place (originally Green Knowe) got its name.

Lucy Boston was inspired to write these books--this is the first in a series of eight--after restoring the Manor House at Hemingford Grey, which dates to the year 1130. The restoration process discovered all kinds of hidden fireplaces and windows and other reminders of the house's ancient past. This apparently awakened in her a sense of history on a human scale and reminded her of how easily we ignore such things. She set out to help others recall this sense of wonder:

I would like to remind adults of joy, now obsolete, and I would like to encourage children to use and trust their senses for themselves at first hand--their ears, eyes and noses, their fingers and soles of their feet, their skins and their breathing, their muscular joy and rhythms and heartbeats, their instinctive loves and pity and awe of the unknown.

She succeeded brilliantly. This enchanting book is suffused with an aura magic and a real spirit of joy.

GRADE: A

A great book! Full of action and adventure

This is a wonderful book, very easy to read, and full of emotion and angst and drama. Written in the first person, the reader is invited into Pagan's world, and an interesting place it is too.

There are 4 books in the series, this is the first, I highly recomed the others.

Her most recent book, 'Eye To Eye' is also excellent!!

Catherine Jinks is the finest author for this age group around.

This fast paced story will be sure to bring a smile to anyone's face, as our narrator and main character Pagan Kidrouk wittily tells us of his adventures. Set in Jeruselem when it was under Christian rule in the 12th century, Pagan is a half Arab, therefore a half enemy for the suspicious minded, a fact that can cause him trouble from time to time. Previously enrolled with the city garrison (and involved with some of the city's low-life), Pagan owes money and is therefore forced to enroll elsewhere. He went to the Knights of the Templar, or Knights of God. Hillariously told through his eyes, Pagan must learn about being the page for the knight Lord Roland deBram. As time and events wear on, these two build their friendship, and as the Turks threaten the holy city, Pagan is faced with losing that friendship, and so pushes his luck one more time in an effort to save it.