Philippa Pearce is the author of many books, several of which are considered classics both in the United States and in her native England. Her award-winning titles include Tom's Midnight Garden, which received the Carnegie Medal and was an ALA Notable Book; The Battle of Bubble and Squeak, which received the Whitbread Award; and Mrs. Cockle's Cat, which received the Kate Greenaway Medal.
Gr 5-8 An aptly named collection by one of England's most accomplished writers for young people. The stories will be familiar to some readers because many of them were published in the U.S. in What the Neighbors Did and Other Stories (1973; o.p.), The Shadow-Cage and Other Tales of the Supernatural (1977, both Crowell), and Who's Afraid and Other Strange Stories (Greenwillow, 1987). But another kind of familiarity, that of emotion, pervades these tales. The selections are filled with many characters, ordinary everyday youngsters, often alone, who are careful watchers of the world around them. Pearce's superb writing brings into sharp focus their perceptions and feelings, so that readers sense that they have been there before, experienced the sensation, been overcome with the same emotion. The supernatural stories are clever and mildly unsettling, often containing a strange twist or an eccentric touch-a child imprisoned in a cage of shadows, a dog who rids a house of rats that inhabit a boy's dreams, even a ghost sitting at the top of an apple tree. The realistic tales are haunting, too, in their own way because the characters and situations linger long after the book is closed. This delightful collection is one that readers will return to again and again. -Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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