Run Away Home

Run Away Home by Elinor Lyon, 1953.

When I first read this book, I didn’t have a copy of it because copies are collector’s items, and many of them are too expensive for me to afford, but after I read this book online, I managed to find a physical copy at an affordable price! I didn’t read this book as a child, but it’s exactly the kind of book I would have loved with atmospherically magical places (although no real magic), mysterious memories, and an orphan with a hidden past. This book was my introduction to the the Ian and Sovra series, although it’s the third book in that series. It’s available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Thirteen-year-old Cathie lives at St. Ursula’s Home for Female Orphans in Birmingham, England. She has lived there ever since she was a young child and was found wandering the streets of London after a bombing raid during World War II. When she was found, she was wearing only a nightgown and clutching a locket that held a picture of a dark-haired woman and some dried flowers. She was unable to tell anyone her full name, only calling herself something that sounded like “Cathie.” (Hint: It “sounded like” Cathie. It wasn’t actually “Cathie.”) There was a label attached to her clothes, but it was torn. It only had the first part of her name (“Cat”) and the words “Passenger to” followed by what looked like the beginning of a place name that started with the letter “K” followed by “via” and what looked like the beginning of King’s Cross. If the label had been intact, there would have been no trouble identifying the child at all. The authorities made inquiries for her family or anyone who could identify her, but no one came forward. The conclusion was that her parents must have been killed in the bombing raid and that she had no other living relatives. Her family, whoever they were, was probably not from London because she was found near some railway station hotels, which had been destroyed. Most of the people staying there were killed, and the hotel records were also destroyed, leaving no further clues to Cathie’s identity. Cathie was sent to the orphanage and given the full name of Catherine Harris, but she knows that isn’t her real name. She has no recollection of the traumatic night of the bombing, but she has a vague sense that she has a real home and family somewhere else and a desperate need to discover her real identity.

One day, while reading a poem by Wordsworth aloud, a description of the seaside awakens a memory in Cathie of her early childhood. She’s had dreams of the seaside before, but she’s never been to the seaside since coming to the orphanage. Her memory of it is so clear that she’s sure that it’s not a dream but a place she’s actually been in the past, perhaps even the place where she used to live. She clearly remembers playing in the white sand on the beach, but she just can’t remember where the beach is.

When Miss Abbott, the headmistress of the orphanage, chides her for stopping her reading of the poem aloud, Cathie is upset that she disrupted her vision and her attempts to remember and screams, throwing the book across the room. Later, when she is called to the headmistress’s office to explain her fit of temper, she explains about the memory. The headmistress once again tells her the story of the night when she was found and shows her the locket and label that were found with her. The authorities honestly tried everything to locate her family and learn her original name, but since all attempts failed, the headmistress tells Cathie that she’s going to have to reconcile herself to not knowing. They’re not even completely sure whether the locket is Cathie’s or not because she was carrying it instead of wearing it, so it might have been something that she just found in the rubble after the bombing and picked up.

The headmistress says that she’s known other girls before whose birth names and parents were unknown, and it’s common for them to imagine some grand past or wealthy relations, pretending that they’re the long-lost daughters of a duke or something, but she wants Cathie to be more practical than that. Her parents are almost certainly dead, and if Cathie had any living relatives, Miss Abbott thinks they would have claimed her before. Miss Abbott thinks it’s unlikely that Cathie will ever get the full story of her past, no matter what she may or may not remember from a seaside holiday. Even if she somehow managed to locate the beach she’s thinking about, Cathie’s parents are dead, and there would be no one waiting for her there. Miss Abbott wants Cathie to focus on the here and now, applying herself to making a future for herself and making friends with other girls. Miss Abbott says that family isn’t everything because even blood family members aren’t always supportive to each other, but learning how to make and keep supportive friends will ensure that Cathie won’t be lonely. She says that Cathie will have a much easier time making and keeping friends if she improves her attitude and learns to keep her temper. It’s actually not bad advice if it’s really impossible for Cathie to learn about her past or if she genuinely has no relatives, but Cathie has a strong sense that isn’t the case for her.

Cathie can’t stop wondering about her memory of the sea and her mysterious past. She’s sure that the locket really did belong to her, but she can tell that the picture in it is much too old to have been her mother because of the woman’s hairstyle, which looks like styles from about 100 years earlier. The woman is standing in front of some mountains, and Cathie wonders if those mountains are a real place as well. She keeps thinking that, if she can get away from the orphanage and see other places, maybe she could find the place she remembers and learn who she really is.

As punishment for her temper tantrum, Cathie is sent to do some mending work for Miss Langham, who owns a big house nearby, instead of going to the pictures with the other girls. Cathie doesn’t mind too much because they were going to see a movie that she didn’t really want to see, and she also likes sewing and Miss Langham. While the two of them have tea in Miss Langham’s garden, Cathie brings up the topic of mountains, and Miss Langham mentions that she likes mountains, too. When she was younger, she used to go for mountain hikes. Cathie shows Miss Langham some embroidery work that she’s been doing with a floral design based on the little flowers in her locket, which look like silver buttercups. Miss Langham recognizes the flowers as Grass of Parnassus, which grows in marshy places, but not in Birmingham. She says that she used to see those flowers when she was younger and went hiking in the mountains in Scotland.

For the first time, Cathie realizes that she might not be English at all. If she had come from somewhere else, that might explain why no one in England knew who she was. The place that she’s remembering might be somewhere in Scotland. If she had really been a passenger from King’s Cross station in London, the train that brought her there might have been the Flying Scotsman, which Cathie knows comes to that station. Cathie tries to think of a place in Scotland that starts with ‘K’, which might have been where she was originally from. Feeling increasingly stifled by the strict rules of the orphanage, the lack of privacy at the orphanage, the bleak city, and Miss Abbott’s attempts to get her to stop dreaming about her past, Cathie begins plotting how she can run away to Scotland and start looking for the secrets of her past.

The next time she sees Miss Langham, she shows her the locket with the flowers, and Miss Langham confirms that the flowers are Grass of Parnassus. She also notices something that no one else who has looked at the locket has noticed – the little ribbon that’s holding the flowers together has a tartan pattern (a special kind of plaid pattern). When Cathie looks closer, she sees that the woman in the picture in the locket is wearing the same tartan. Cathie is excited because she realizes that this is confirmation that she was originally from Scotland. Even better, Miss Langham tells her that there are tartans that are specific to certain families or clans. Miss Langham doesn’t know enough about tartans to recognize which clan’s tartan is in the locket, but Cathie realizes that if she can find someone who can identify tartans, she has the key to learning who her family is! (Yes, the tartan pattern in the story is a real tartan, and it is one of the tartans shown on the tartan site page I linked. I checked after I knew what family to look for. But, it’s tricky to figure it out based only on the description in the book because some clan tartans share color combinations. To really identify which is which, you’d have to actually see and recognize the patterns of the colored lines and squares in the tartan. There are no pictures in the book.)

Miss Langham begins to like Cathie and sends an invitation to the orphanage to invite her to spend a few days with her in her home. Since Cathie has been pretty well-behaved lately, Miss Abbott decides to let her visit Miss Langham for a few days, although she has some misgivings because she can tell that Cathie has been acting oddly, as if she were keeping a secret. This visit to Miss Langham is critical because it gives Cathie the means to go to Scotland and try to find her home and family.

When Cathie goes to Miss Langham’s house, she isn’t there. Instead, Mrs. Riddle meets her and apologizes to her on Miss Langham’s behalf. The visit is canceled because Miss Langham’s brother is ill, and Miss Langham has gone to see him. There was no time to inform the orphanage of the change in plans before Cathie left because they don’t have a telephone. Cathie is bitterly disappointed because she had been looking forward to the visit, but Mrs. Riddle gives her some tea and cake and a note that Miss Langham left for Cathie. The note tells Cathie where to find some money that Miss Langham left for her to pay for purchasing the embroidered place mats that Cathie had been making with the Grass of Parnassus design. Suddenly, Cathie realizes that she now has money that no one else knows about. Her clothes already packed in her luggage for a few days away, including some holiday clothes that are different from the orphanage uniform, and no one is expecting her back at the orphanage for days because they all think that she’s with Miss Langham. Her opportunity to escape has come!

Feeling obligated to let everyone know that she isn’t dead when they discover that she’s missing, she adds a note of her own onto Miss Langham’s note that asks her to tell Miss Abbott that she has gone back to the place where she came from. Cathie thinks that, when the message reaches Miss Abbott, Miss Abbott will assume that Cathie has gone to London, the place where she was found as a young child. But, she has a few critical days to reach Scotland before her disappearance will even be discovered. She changes into her plain holiday clothes and goes to the train station in Birmingham. After she gets on the train, she uses her sewing things to remove the distinctive red trim on her coat so it won’t look like it’s part of an orphan uniform anymore.

The first place she goes is Derby, and she decides to hitchhike further north from there to save some money. She gets a ride from a truck driver (lorry driver, this is a British book), but he gets concerned that she might be a runaway or in some kind of trouble. He notices that the name she gives him isn’t the same as the one written on her luggage, a detail that Cathie had forgotten. At least, the driver has no bad intentions toward her and is kind enough to be genuinely concerned for her welfare. He tries to take her to a police station in Sheffield, but Cathie slips away from him and hides in the back of his truck, so he’s tricked into taking her further. When she gets the chance, she gets out and hides in the back of another truck that takes her almost to the border of Scotland. When this driver discovers her, she makes up a story about hitching rides to Scotland because she’s going there for a job in Edinburgh. She decides to take a train the rest of the way to Edinburgh, but by this time, Miss Abbott has already discovered that Cathie is not with Miss Langham. At first, Miss Abbott does think that Cathie might be going to London because of her note, but the police report of a possible runaway in Sheffield gives Miss Abbott the idea that Scotland might be Cathie’s intended destination. Cathie narrowly avoids being picked up by the police as she falls asleep in the waiting room of the train station because they think that she’s already left on an earlier train.

Once Cathie successfully reaches Edinburgh, she isn’t quite sure what to do next, but she enjoys being in the city, feeling like Scotland is the right place for her to be. Then, she spots a boy and a girl who are about her age, noticing that the boy is wearing a tartan kilt (but not the tartan in Cathie’s locket). When the boy, Ian, trips and drops the parcels he’s carrying, Cathie helps him. She makes friends with Ian and Sovra (the girl), and they invite her to come with them to see Edinburgh Castle. They notice that she speaks with an English accent and ask her about where she’s from. She confides in them about running away to find where she’s from, hoping that the answers lie in Scotland. Ian and Sovra are thrilled by Cathie’s story.

Ian and Sovra Kennedy don’t actually live in Edinburgh but on the west coast of Scotland. They’re only in Edinburgh temporarily to help their Aunt Effie. The name of their town is Melvick, and they live in a house called “Camas Ban”, which they tell Cathie means “White Bay” because of the white sand on the beach there. More than ever, Cathie is sure that she’s headed in the right direction!

Ian and Sovra catch the train home while Cathie returns to the cafe where she ate breakfast, searching for her locket, which she lost earlier. By the time she finds it and returns to the station, they are already gone, but Cathie asks about other trains to Melvick. There is going to be another train to Melvick early in the morning, and Cathie is told that it goes straight through to Melvick via Kinlochmore, with no changes necessary. Kinlochmore is the first Scottish place name Cathie has heard that starts with a ‘K’, and from the description of the area that Ian and Sovra gave her, which include a beach with white sand and mountains, Cathie is convinced that is where the secrets of her past can be found!

Cathie is on the right trail for finding the answers that she seeks, but getting caught is still a concern. The police and Miss Abbott are still looking for her, and she’s running out of money. Ian and Sovra help her and hide her in their secret hidden cottage (from the first book in the series), but unbeknownst to all of them, they’ve actually met Cathie before. Cathie really is remembering the beach near their home, and while she doesn’t remember the two of them, there was a time when they were all there, back before Cathie’s parents were killed in the Blitz and Cathie was known by her real name … Catriona, or as her parents used to call her, Catri.

My Reaction and Spoilers

One thing that I appreciated about this story is that there are no evil characters in it. None of the strangers Cathie meets wish her harm, and they even try to help her, although she dodges some of their help because it would take her back to the orphanage instead of allowing her to move forward on her mission. The orphanage where Cathie lives isn’t terrible. It’s kind of like a boarding school, so she is being educated, and she is not starved or beaten there. The worst Cathie can say about it is that the discipline is somewhat strict and she never has real privacy from the other girls.

Miss Abbott is the closest that Cathie comes to having an antagonist, and she does give Cathie punishments early in the story for the emotional and discipline problems she has while trying to revive her memories and reconnect with her past. In modern times, I think most caregivers would recognize the emotional turmoil Cathie is experiencing and be more patient and supportive to help her work through her feelings and memories, but Cathie’s orphanage doesn’t seem to offer professional counseling. Miss Abbott isn’t trying to harm Cathie. She does repeat the story of Cathie’s past when she asks her to, and when she lectures her on her behavior or gives her punishments, it’s not blind, unfeeling discipline; she explains her reasons to Cathie and tells her not just what she doesn’t want her to do but how she wants her to act and why. Miss Abbott is strict, but she actually does care what happens to Cathie and is trying to do what she thinks is best for her. The only reason why she doesn’t want Cathie to pursue the past in the beginning is that she thinks that it’s hopeless, and she’s pretty clear about that. She’s seen other girls pine for families they just don’t have or who are never going to reclaim them, for whatever reason. She thinks that there just isn’t enough information for Cathie to reconnect with her past and that she has no living relatives to find. Thinking about what she’s lost and will never find could just lead to more frustration, anger, and depression for Cathie. Even if she could find the beach she once visited as a young child, what would she do if there’s no one there waiting for her? Miss Abbott wants Cathie to reconcile herself to her loss and focus on the present and the future, building skills and relationships with the people around her, because she thinks that is what will lead Cathie to a better life. Cathie admits that Miss Abbott is nice, but she likes to plan other people’s lives, and she didn’t like the life that Miss Abbott had planned for her. In some books, that might actually be the moral of the story, learning to reconcile with the past and move forward without getting all of the answers, but this is is a sort of mystery/adventure story, so Cathie is on the path to finding the answers she seeks. It is a pretty calm, relaxing sort of adventure story, though, because no one is trying to harm Cathie, and the only threat is that they will put an end to her inquiries and take her back to Birmingham.

I liked the part of the story where Ian and Sovra are talking about which of the adults in their family and community would be most likely to give Cathie away to the authorities if they found out about her, and Ian says that even the two of them might turn Cathie in if they were a lot older. Cathie demands to know what he means by that, and Ian explains that it has to do with priorities. Kids and adults have different priorities. The biggest concern for the adults would be that Cathie is running around unsupervised and might get into all kinds of dangerous situations on her own, with no adult to supervise and take care of her. They would feel like they have to reign her in for her own good, and they’re also probably angry with her for causing them worry about her. However, Ian says, explaining the priorities that he and Sovra share with her as children, “You see, we know what’s more important. It doesn’t matter a bit if people are worried about you and rushing around looking for you. It does matter a lot for you to find out who you are.” Maybe he and Sovra would feel differently about it if they were older than Cathie and directly responsible for her safety, but as friends and equals in age, they put their concentration on helping her to accomplish her mission instead. It’s not that the kids and adults have different understandings of the situation. Both understand what Cathie is trying to do and both know know that there are risks involved in what Cathie is doing, but the main difference between them is that the children think that it’s still possible for Cathie to accomplish her mission to find out about her past, and the adults in Cathie’s life have already given up on that possibility and are just concerned with keeping her safe.

One of my early thoughts about the book was that Cathie’s parents might not necessarily be dead, since we don’t know in the beginning why Cathie was in London during WWII or how she got there. However, they really were killed in the bombing attack the night that Cathie was found, and they really are dead. For a long time, Cathie’s other relatives have assumed that Cathie/Catri died with them because the place where she was found wasn’t the place where they expected her to be and where they had been making inquiries for her and her parents. When they never heard from any of them again and they found out that there also had been a bombing in the area where they were supposed to be around the time when they disappeared, they had assumed that the whole family had been killed. Not everyone who died in bombing raids was able to be identified, so there were times when families weren’t notified of deaths and had to assume them from the circumstances and lack of contact from their relatives.

Stories about mysterious orphans with unknown pasts are staples of children’s literature and make great topics for mystery stories, but one of the fascinating things about this particular story is that it’s the kind of thing that could and did happen around the time of WWII. The time period really makes this story because it’s not only plausible that an orphan could go unidentified for a long period of time, but this is just the time and place where that would actually make sense. England was a war zone in World War II. It wasn’t actually invaded, but it was bombed frequently. People were killed, and children were separated from their parents in the chaos. In this era of chaos and sudden death, children were sometimes born out of wedlock to parents having a wartime fling and grew up without knowing who their parents were, or at least not knowing who their fathers were. That could account for some of the other children at the orphanage with unknown parents, but not Cathie. Some children were abandoned by desperate parents or were accidentally left when arrangements for unofficial adoptions suddenly fell through. Those are all things that really happened around that time, but that isn’t Cathie’s story, either.

In modern times, DNA evidence can help solve mysteries of this type, and it has helped to solve some past mysteries for people who were adopted as children, but back in the 1940s and 1950s, that wasn’t an option. Also, in modern times, Internet news stories and televised communication methods would also have helped the story of the found girl travel further, making it more likely that it would reach her relatives or someone who knew them. During this time, they would have been relying solely on newspapers and radio, and there might not have even been a picture to accompany a news story about the found child that would help someone recognize her. Modern methods don’t always solve every mystery, but they can help a great deal. That’s why this story really only works for this time period – a time when chaotic events happened that separated families and orphaned children and when modern investigative tools were unavailable.

Early in the story, I had thought that Cathie might have been about to head on her way out of London to somewhere else at the time of the bombing as a child evacuee because many children were sent away from London for safety from the bombings around that time. That wasn’t the case with Cathie, but it would have been a plausible explanation for the tag on her clothes. Child evacuees were known for having tags with their names attached to their clothes, and some children never returned home to their families when the war ended because their parents had died or had abandoned them. However, that’s not the case in this story, either. At the time her parents were killed, young Catri was actually traveling with her parents en route to another destination. The stop in London was unplanned, and they never made it to the place where they were supposed to be because of the bombing. It was just a case of bad luck and being caught up in the larger chaos of the war happening around them. The story does provided details of exactly how that happened, but since the book is available online, I decided not to include some of that information to preserve some suspense for people who want to read the story.

The special magic of this book isn’t just that Cathie discovers her identity, but how she does it. Readers know that when Cathie sets out on her journey, she’s likely to find some answers or at least a new home that will be better for her than the orphanage because the title of the book is “Run Away Home.” But, in the beginning of the story, readers are not quite sure how Cathie will do it and exactly what waits for her at the end of her journey. It’s the journey toward the truth and her special connection to the other children who help her that make the story satisfying. Little by little, Cathie uncovers pieces of the past. There are some lucky coincidences where she connects with people who were already connected to her and who can explain the past to her. When she comes to Melvick, Ian and Sovra hide her in a shieling or hut that they found hidden behind a waterfall in the first book of this series, which is a magical place to stay. For the first time in her life, Cathie has time alone where she can explore the beach and nearby mountains, and she enjoys the peace and serenity of the countryside more than the big city where she had been living. The characters in the book mention that, during WWII, parts of the west coast of Scotland were blocked off to visitors, except people who lived there or had relatives in the area, due to military exercises. The fact that Cathie definitely remembers being there during that time tells her and others that she either lived there or had family there, and it wasn’t just a one-time beach holiday.

At one point, Alastair Gunn and Dr. Kennedy figure out that Cathie is some sort of runaway, and Ian is physically punished for hiding her. I thought at that point in the book, Alastair handled the situation clumsily, saying too soon that Cathie can’t stay hiding there without first questioning her more closely about what she’s doing there and where she came from. I habitually ask a lot of questions, and it seemed to me that the adults in the book act too soon without finding out what they need to know about the situation. In their place, I would have wanted to get the situation straight before declaring anything or punishing anyone. At that point, the adults hardly know what the kids have been up to. By the time Miss Abbott arrives in Melvick, there is no need for her to return to the orphanage. Just when Cathie is thinking that she’ll have to reconcile herself to not knowing about her past and build a new future in the new home she’s been offered, the final pieces of the puzzle of her life fall into place, and Cathie gets the answers she’s been looking for. Even Miss Abbott is satisfied that Cathie has finally found the home she’s been looking for. After this book, Cathie becomes one of the major characters in this series.

I also liked this book for explaining the meanings of some Gaelic terms and place names. The Scottish characters do use some words that American readers might not be familiar with, like “dreich” and “havering,” but their dialogue is still easy to understand. The book doesn’t go overboard with trying to write to show the characters’ accents, which can get confusing and annoying in some books. The Scottish characters use “och” as an expression sometimes, but they don’t overdo it.

The House in Hiding

The House in Hiding by Elinor Lyon, 1950.

This is the first book in the Ian and Sovra series, which takes place in Scotland.

Ian and Sovra Kennedy are brother and sister, and they live by the sea in western Scotland. Their father is the doctor in their small town. One day, after Ian and Sovra have been asking their dad to rent a boat for them so they can explore some of the islands just off the coast where they live, their father tells them that he has bought a boat for them. It’s just a small boat for rowing, but it’s theirs, and it gives them the freedom to explore that they want. There is one island in particular that they want to explore, the one they call Castle Island. Its real name is Eilean Glas, which means “Gray Island”, but they like to call it Castle Island because there’s a square-shaped rock in the middle of the island that looks somewhat like a castle. However, their visit to this particular island has to wait for the end of the book because other events intervene to distract them.

When the children come back from trying out their boat for the first time, they hear their parents arguing about how to accommodate some house guests. Their father’s fishing friend wants to come for a visit. He was going to rent rooms in town for himself, his wife, and their daughter, but the innkeeper has had a stroke and can’t handle guests right now. So, Dr. Kennedy has offered to host the family, but the Kennedy house isn’t very big. If the guests use the children’s rooms, Ian and Sovra will have to camp out in the bothy, which is an old hut in back of the house. Ian and Sovra sometimes camp there anyway for fun, but it does get damp when it rains. Mrs. Kennedy doesn’t like the idea of the children sleeping there if the weather gets bad, but the children think that it sounds like fun and tell their mother that they’ll be fine and that they want to do it.

Dr. Kennedy’s friend is named Tom Paget. Dr. Kennedy doesn’t like Mrs. Paget, although it isn’t completely clear why. All he says about her is that she likes to wear a cloak and paint with water colors, which doesn’t sound very objectionable by itself. (I was actually a little irritated at Dr. Kennedy because he makes repeated comments about how much he doesn’t like Mrs. Paget without offering any more information than that. If she’s just a little eccentric in her style of dress and likes art, so what? I found the parts in the book where they get nitpicky and really down on her irritating.) Their daughter Ann is about the same age as Ian, and because Dr. Kennedy hasn’t yet met her, he’s not sure what she’s like until the family arrives, although he makes a point of saying, to his children, directly, that he hopes Ann isn’t like her mother. (Nope, no further information about why, and Dr. Kennedy sounds rather rude.) Dr. Kennedy’s comments about Ann and her mother leave Ian and Sovra feeling unenthusiastic about their guests, so they plan to spend most of their visit staying out of their way and possibly avoiding Ann, too, if she turns out to be like whatever her mother is like. (Way to go, Dr. Kennedy. Let’s start this whole experience off on a bad foot with everyone primed to hate your house guests, shall we?) Ian thinks that their whole camping outside the house experience would be even more fun if they were further from the house, so they won’t have to deal with the guests poking their noses into the bothy to see where they’re staying or worrying about whether Ann will want to join them because that would be bad for vague reasons.

Ian and Sovra start camping out in the bothy before the guests actually arrive to get things in order. However, they accidentally set fire to the bothy during an accident with their camp fire. With the bothy burned, where are Ian and Sovra going to camp out while the guests use their rooms? Their parents won’t let them have a tent because it won’t be dry enough if it rains. Fortunately, an important discovery that Ian and Sovra make turn this misfortune into an adventure.

While their parents worry about finding them another place to stay during their guests’ visit, the kids go exploring further in their boat. Their boat gets caught in a whirlpool and is drawn around the back of a waterfall, where they find a hidden cave. More importantly, someone else discovered this cave a long time ago. There are stone steps carved into the rock and a metal ring set into the wall for tying up boats, showing the children that this is an intentional landing spot. When they go up the stone steps, they discover an old, abandoned cottage hidden in a green hollow. (They call it a shieling.) The old cottage is in remarkably good condition for being abandoned for a long time, and Ian thinks that if they clean it up, it would be the perfect place for the two of them to stay during the guests’ visit. Sovra thinks that their parents aren’t likely to agree because the cottage is too far from their own house and rather isolated, and the landing place behind the waterfall is too dangerous. However, Ian is sure that there’s a better landing place somewhere else, if they approach from another side. Upon further exploration, the kids find a collection of cottages that were once a tiny village, older than the shieling they found and abandoned for a long time. The little abandoned village does have a landing place, and they decide that was probably how the people who once lived in the shieling got to where they built their home. They have to be careful, though, because the area is surrounded by a bog that might contain quicksand, and they’re not sure how to get across or around the bog. In the end, they decide that the waterfall entrance is actually the best way to reach the shieling, and they learn to navigate the currents around the waterfall safely.

The children’s father finally gives them permission to camp out in the old shieling, although their mother still has misgivings because the parents aren’t completely clear on exactly where the children will be camping and haven’t seen it yet themselves. The children describe the shieling to their father and tell him that it’s over near Lochhead, another town nearby. Dr. Kennedy is satisfied from their description that the house will be safe to camp in and says that they can communicate with them daily by sending them a message by the postal van from Lochhead, and if they need anything, the parents will send it to them by the same van the next day. Their mother is still uneasy, but since their father is convinced that it will be fine, she finally agrees to let them go. Ian and Sovra are thrilled at having this secret house all to themselves, but Ian says that they will need to keep it a secret and be careful not to leave signs that they’re there, just in case someone still owns the old house and doesn’t want them there, even if they’re not using the house themselves right now.

The children’s discovery and use the shieling is not only the beginning of this story but also the rest of the series. The children’s secret hiding place not only provides them with a secret place of their own but also leads them to some important discoveries about their own family and other people. This book in particular focuses on the missing chieftain of the Gunn clan, who has been presumed dead, but it takes awhile for that mystery to enter the story.

While Ian and Sovra are enjoying their freedom in their secret house, the Pagets arrive with their daughter, Ann. Mrs. Paget turns out to be a somewhat eccentric woman, sometimes overly enthusiastic about little things, raving about them with some cutesy talk. She often elaborates her daughter’s name from Ann (which is what it really is) to the longer Annabel or Annabella (neither of which is her actual name) and referring to the absent Ian and Sovra as the “dear little children.” (Yeah, it’s kind of an annoying cutesiness, but I still think that Dr. Kennedy shouldn’t have been maligning her before she arrived.) Mrs. Paget isn’t just a hobby painter; she has actual shows of her work and has been successful at selling her paintings. When she arrives, she tells the Kennedys that she wants to find the best places in the area to paint, and she’s particularly interested in things like old castles, old bridges, and waterfalls. (I think you can see where this is going.) The Kennedys mention that there are abandoned villages in the area.

Mrs. Paget thinks that sounds exciting and asks about the history of these villages. The Kennedys say that they don’t know the full story behind them, but Donald, the old man they bought the boat from, might know. They think that the people who used to live there probably moved to the bigger cities to find work or something. (This is something that actually did happen to small villages in Scotland in real life. If you’d like to know more about the circumstances and see pictures, I suggest looking at Hirta Island. Although it looks like a pretty spot, living conditions there were harsh, and after a young woman died there who might have been saved if she had lived near a city with a hospital, the people decided that it was too isolated, and they didn’t have the population levels and support they needed to stay there.)

Poor Ann is bored and disappointed by the absence of Ian and Sovra. (Yeah, thanks again, Dr. Kennedy, for all the negative talk that made them not want to even meet poor Ann and be friends with her. In his first message to the children after the guests arrive, Dr. Kennedy makes fun of Mrs. Paget’s sandals, which he says are “made of pink string” and says he doesn’t know why Mrs. Paget wants them to meet Ann. Oh, I don’t know Dr. Kennedy. Let’s all think hard about this. Could it possibly be because Ann is lonely, there are no other kids in the area, and she could use a friend? Why is Dr. Kennedy so mean and weird about this? He’s an adult, for crying out loud! Ian and Sovra think that it would be “frightfulness” if they have to meet Ann and actually “be nice to” her if she’s like her mother. Keep in mind that they still don’t even know what Mrs. Paget is really like because they haven’t met her, and oh, noes, how awful to be nice to somebody who’s a little strange or eccentric during a temporary visit. What a family!) Ann often finds family holidays boring because she’s an only child. When her mother is busy painting and her father is busy fishing, Ann has very little to do and nobody to talk to. Ian and Sovra know that the Pagets have arrived, but they try to avoid meeting them, both because they think that they won’t like the Pagets, not even Ann, and because they want to keep the house where they’re staying a secret.

The very first time Ian sees Ann, he tries to run away from her and ends up falling and getting hurt. Ann tries to help him, although he resists at first, partly because he is afraid that if his mother finds out that he’s hurt, she’ll put an end to the camping trip. Ian messes up Ann’s name, calling her “Animosity,” and I’m not sure if he did it on purpose or because he actually has a head injury from his fall. (Actually, it was probably on purpose because he does it repeatedly from this point on in the story. No, Ian, “animosity” is what your family cultivates for other people and what I’ve been feeling each time your dad criticizes Mrs. Paget behind her back.) Ann messes up Sovra’s name, asking if Ian is saying “Sofa”, but I cut her more slack because Sovra is a more unusual name, and she’s not doing it deliberately. She’s just asking if she heard that right. Ian does explain that although Sovra mostly spells her name “Sovra” for school, her name is really supposed to be the Gaelic word “Sobhrach”, which means “Primrose.” Same name and pronunciation, but different spelling. Ann likes the name for being unusual. Ann goes to get some water for Ian, and while she’s gone, Sovra finds Ian and helps him into their boat. By the time Ann gets back, they’re gone.

Sovra worries about whether Ian has given away their secret to Ann. Ian says he doesn’t think so, but he has been rambling and not thinking straight since he hit his head, so he can’t be sure. He’s dizzy and disoriented and definitely showing signs of having a concussion. He should be checked out by a doctor, who happens to be his dad in this area. However, Sovra takes Ian back to the shieling. Ann worries about where Ian disappeared to, but she realizes that he couldn’t have gone anywhere by himself in his condition, so someone else must have come and helped him. She doesn’t mention what happened when she returns to where her mother is painting by the abandoned village because she doesn’t know where Ian is and can only assume that someone took him somewhere to get help. Both she and her mother spot smoke rising from the hollow where the shieling is, and Ann wonders if that could be Ian and Sovra’s campsite, although she isn’t sure. When Ian and Sovra get another note from their parents, it says nothing about Ian’s injury, so they realize that Ann didn’t tell the adults about it, and they begin to think more highly of her for keeping their secret. (Yeah, as if that was the smartest or most caring thing she could have done. But, these are kid priorities. You’d think with a father who’s a doctor that they’d know better than to be too cavalier about head injuries, though.)

However, soon, there are other things on the kids’ minds. When Ian went to go see Donald about a bung for their boat, he noticed that Donald has a special two-handled cup called a quaich, and his quaich has a symbol on it that’s the same as a symbol that was carved into the hearth of the shieling. Ian and Sovra wonder if that means that Donald actually owns the shieling. When they ask him about it, he tells them that the symbol is a juniper sprig and it’s the badge of the Gunn clan. Donald questions them about why they want to know, and they carefully say that they’ve seen the symbol carved somewhere else. Donald realizes what they’re talking about, and he tells them that he once helped to build the little house where they’re staying. Years ago, his cousins lived in the little abandoned village, and he found that secret cave behind the waterfall himself when he was young. He’s the one who created the secret landing place and stone steps. The Gunns once owned the village and the land around it, but the head of the family, Colonel Gunn, died without children. Since then, Kindrachill House, the bigger house where Colonel Gunn lived, has been empty. Colonel Gunn did have a nephew named Alastair, but everyone believes that he died somewhere in the Far East. Alastair used to live in the shieling where Ian and Sovra have been staying. Donald gives the kids permission to continue staying there, since it seems that the original owner isn’t coming back. He also tells them that there’s a superstition in the Gunn family that, when Kindrachill House is empty, the heir to the estate will not arrive until someone lights a fire in the hearth. Ian wonders if they really have to light a fire only in the hearth at Kindrachill to make the legend come true or if it would count that they’ve been lighting fires in the hearth at the shieling, where Alastair used to live and where he carved his family’s crest in the hearth. Sovra says that it doesn’t really matter since Alastair’s dead and can’t come back … but is that really true?

When things in the shieling are moved around when Ian and Sovra aren’t there, they assume that Ann has found their hideout. They know that she’s been looking for it. Later, she admits to them that she has been there, having figured out a way to get there that Ian and Sovra don’t even know about, but she didn’t move all of the things that have been moved. Someone else who knows about the shieling has been there. They know it’s not Donald because he has trouble walking and can’t make the trip to the shieling by himself. So, who else could it be?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers

The location of the story gives it an almost timeless quality. The children spend much of their time in nature, with few references to modern technology, so the story could take place in many time periods. However, the book is set contemporary to the time when it was written, in the mid-20th century, after WWII. That time period is especially important in the third book in the series. This first book in the series could take place during many possible decades, but the third book can only be set during the 1950s because WWII is important to that story.

There is a slight element of mystery to the story, but the kids aren’t actively trying to solve the mystery element. Mostly, it’s a kind of adventure story with elements of slice-of-life about how these kids spend their summer in an exciting location with a somewhat mysterious history. Little pieces of the situation are gradually revealed to the characters during their adventures. Kids like stories about other kids who have adventures without adult supervision, and parts of the story are about the fun things they do, setting up house in the old cottage and enjoying themselves in and around the secret hideaway.

The Kennedys’ Attitude Problems

I have to say that I didn’t like the attitudes of any of the Kennedys. I actually read the third book before this one, and I liked the characters better in that book. In this book, both the parents and the kids seem to be some kind of snobs. They’re negative and mean about Mrs. Paget and her daughter for little reason. Granted, I don’t like cutesiness much, but Mrs. Paget just seems to be a mildly eccentric artist who dresses a little oddly and acts overly enthusiastic about some things. I didn’t think there was any call for a medical man like Dr. Kennedy, who should be at least somewhat understanding about human nature because of his profession, to be so mean about the way Mrs. Paget dresses or try to discourage his children from being nice to Ann. There’s almost a mean girl exclusiveness quality to the Kennedys’ behavior. Most of the men I know have little knowledge about women’s clothes, but Dr. Kennedy sounds like a middle school mean girl, nitpicking the way the poor woman dresses. He even writes about it in the notes that he sends to his kids during their camping trip. The pink rope sandals bother him so much that he wants to put that in writing to his kids who aren’t even there and who should be polite to this guest when they actually meet. Dude, you live a “simple” life in a cottage near a small town on the coast of Scotland. You’re not exactly in a high society fashion district, and there are few people around to see or care what anybody dresses like. So what if she likes to wear cloaks with sandals? It’s an odd clothing choice because it seems to indicate that she’s dressing for two different types of weather at once, but it’s harmless. Calling the landscape “delicious” and the children “dear little children” (“dear” seems overly generous to me, but Mrs. Paget doesn’t know any better) might seems a little sappy, but again, so what if she’s somewhat sappy and romantic in her speech? Calling her daughter Ann by much longer names which she could have just named her in the beginning, like Annabel or Annabella, is also a little odd, but if Ann doesn’t seem to care, why should anybody else? Families do sometimes have odd nicknames for kids, and it’s not the worst I’ve ever heard. Going from a shorter name to a longer one is the opposite of what most nicknames do, but again, it’s just harmless eccentricity. None of the things Mrs. Paget does seem really that bad. Mrs. Paget doesn’t do anything rude or mean, and she seems like a pretty unobtrusive guest. Mostly, she just wants to find pretty spots where she can sit most of the day and work on her paintings while her husband fishes, so if they don’t like her cute, sappy talk, they don’t have to hear it much. She only seems to return to the Kennedy house to eat and sleep, and that’s literally the least a host can provide a house guest.

The Kennedys are fine in the scenes when they’re just by themselves, but when their guests are around, they’re barely holding back inner meanness and rudeness for the guests that seems completely undeserved. That was a constant source of tension for me while reading the book. When Mrs. Paget is asking about beautiful spots in the area with enthusiasm and interest in their history, Dr. Kennedy is thinking about the best way to answer her questions quickly so he can just talk to her husband (about fishing, I guess), like he just wants her to shut up. The men are going to go off fishing together, during which they’ll have hours to talk about anything they want, and Dr. Kennedy thinks it’s such an imposition to talk to Mrs. Paget for a few minutes when they first arrive about the area where he lives and its history, for which Mrs. Paget has only expressed admiration and interest. Mrs. Kennedy also seems oddly defensive to Mrs. Paget about the “simple” life they lead, which she seems to think is too simple for Mrs. Paget, but Mrs. Paget reassures her that isn’t the case, that she thinks the area is charming and the children’s camping trip sounds like fun. Mrs. Paget seems overly enthusiastic about how great it all is. Whether she’s really that enthusiastic on the inside, I couldn’t say, but at least she speaks positively and makes an effort to show interest. She is definitely interested in the artistic possibilities of the area and sincerely curious about its history. She follows up her curiosity by asking Donald about what he knows, which shows effort.

Meanwhile, the Kennedys are trying to hide their negativity, which seems to spring from ideas they have about Mrs. Paget that aren’t born out in real life. There’s little indication of how the Kennedys got these ideas except their own inner negativity and insecurity. When I was a kid, my mother would tell me to be nice to other people and to make visitors feel welcome, and even if I wasn’t having fun with particular visitors, to remember that their visit was only temporary and make the best of it until it’s over. You can feel any way you want, but you still have to behave yourself. Being nice to a temporary guest is not a terrible imposition, and putting up with a less-than-ideal guest is completely bearable and encourages return hospitality. The Kennedys don’t impart these lessons to their children, and the father seems to particularly discourage this thinking. This is the type of family that breeds little bullies, people who think that generally being nice to people is a terrible burden to endure. It really struck me as pretty rotten for Dr. Kennedy, a grown man in a position of trust and responsibility for the welfare of people in their community, to try to discourage his children from meeting and being nice to Ann, a lonely child who never did anything to Dr. Kennedy and doesn’t deserve this bad treatment from him, smearing her reputation and making it difficult for her to make friends. Why is Dr. Kennedy trying to get his kids to be mean to Ann instead of telling them to be kind to a guest and make friends?

Of course, I really know why the Kennedys have to be this way. It’s a plot device. Their reasons for not liking Ann and her mother don’t have to be fair or make complete sense because it’s the results that matter. It’s all to set up part of the conflict of the story. If Dr. Kennedy was nicer about Mrs. Paget and encouraged his kids to be nice to Ann, they wouldn’t be so worried about having Ann around or joining them on their camping trip. Ian wouldn’t have been so worried about Ann seeing him that he tried to run from her, fell, and got that concussion. If the kids were friendlier with each other, Ann wouldn’t have needed to get a ride from a stranger or might have told them about the man she met who gave her a ride and who turns out to be important. Quite a lot of the problems the kids encounter would have been different or simplified if characters were nice with each other and worked together more. It’s a theme that appears often in literature, and actually, quite a lot in real life, too. It doesn’t make it any less annoying for me.

Character Development

The parts where I thought Ian and Sovra were at their best were when they were completely by themselves. They seem to have a good brother-and-sister relationship and know how to function as a team. Even when one of them messes something up and they criticize each other, they still have each other’s back and work together to clean up their messes. However, I never really got to like Ian and Sovra as people during this book because of their meanness and snobbishness, which is ironic because they later say that they don’t like Ann because she thinks that she’s better than they are. This seems to be a retroactive decision by the author because she doesn’t show that trait right away. It seems to surface later in the story, long after Ian and Sovra have decided that they don’t like Ann and need to avoid her and think it would be frightful to be nice to her.

My favorite characters in the story are thoughtful Ann and kind Alastair. Yes, Alastair does appear in the story. He’s not dead. Ann is the first to meet Alastair on his arrival back in the area, and he helps her when Ian and Sovra have been mean to her, stealing her shoes so she can’t follow them back to their secret house from the beach and leaving her to limp back to the Kennedy house over rocks with a hurt foot. Ann vents to Alastair about her troubles with the Kennedys without knowing who he really is, and he tells her that he’s sorry that she’s having such a bad time and that the Kennedys have been unpleasant to her. Finally, a voice of reason and compassion in the story! Ann doesn’t mention this encounter with Alastair to anybody at first because she doesn’t know who he is, that they all think he’s dead, or that his return has any special meaning.

Little by little, Ian and Sovra do start to feel guilty about the way they’ve treated Ann and start looking at her differently, noticing the things she does well and acknowledging some of the skills and knowledge she has. Eventually, Sovra does apologize to Ann for stealing her shoes. When Ann is seasick the first time they take her out in their boat, she admits that she’s not as used to sailing as they are, which makes her seem less superior than Ian and Sovra thought she was. Ann even apologizes for talking like she knows everything when she doesn’t, but I still thought it was weird because that wasn’t the impression that I was getting from her until after Sovra and Ian started saying that’s what she was doing. The apologies they each give each other and their mutual acknowledgement of each other’s faults and strengths help them come to a better understanding of each other and resolve their conflicts.

Ann also proves to Ian and Sovra that she does know things that even they don’t know about the shieling and the area around it because of the questions her mother asked Donald about the history of the area. Donald told Mrs. Paget that there was once a pathway between the abandoned village and the shieling that was lost years ago, apparently swallowed up by the bog, and nobody knows quite where it is now. However, this summer has been drier than normal in the area, and Ann realizes that the path might have been exposed again by the lower water levels in the bog. She carefully observes the area from a high vantage point when they go hiking in the mountains until she spots where the path goes and marks it on her map. Then, the next time her mother goes to the village to paint, she scouts for the beginning of the path from the ground, finding a series of stepping stones through the bog.

When Ian and Sovra ask her later how she got to the shieling when she didn’t know about the waterfall entrance, she explains to them what she did, and they ask her to show them where the path is. I liked this part because Ian and Sovra were smug earlier about Ann’s map, saying that they didn’t need any local maps like that because everyone knows where everything around here is anyway, and their big source of pride with Ann was that they know more about the area than she does. (They thought that her explanations of what’s on her map when they asked her to show it to them earlier was just her trying to be “superior” to them.) They do know a lot from living there for their whole lives, but the problem is that they count too much on that sometimes and don’t think to ask the questions Ann and her mother do because Ann and her mother are aware of what they don’t know and are actively trying to learn.

I also liked it that when Ian and Sovra finally let Ann join them camping at the shieling, they also let her take over the cooking. Earlier, they took exception to her father saying that she’s an excellent cook because they saw it as bragging and acting superior, but Ann really is good at cooking and likes doing it, and Sovra admits that she isn’t terribly good at it and doesn’t really like it herself. I was relieved when the characters stopped worrying about who was superior to who and who was acting superior when they shouldn’t and just let people do what they’re good at and interested in doing, acknowledging when someone does something well without adding a kind of put-down onto it, like Ian and Sovra did earlier.

Alistair

Getting back to Alastair’s return, he eventually shows up at the shieling and talks to the children, explaining what happened to him. He says that he tried to talk to them before, but they weren’t at the shieling the last time he stopped by. His plane was wrecked in the Pacific (They don’t say that it happened during the war, so it might not have been. I thought they might have been implying that he was a pilot in the war, but that would play with the timing of later books in the series.), as they heard, and he spent some time living with a native group on an island. The natives were friendly enough and helped him, but it took him awhile to learn enough of their language to really communicate with them and figure out how to get to a place where he could arrange passage home. That was when he first learned that he’d been declared dead. Since then, he’s been reestablishing his identity and checking on the estate that he’s inherited. By the time that Alastair finally shows up at the shieling and introduces himself to the children, they’ve heard that Kindrachill House is supposed to be sold to pay the mortgage. When they ask Alastair about it, he confirms that he doesn’t have the money he needs to pay the mortgage. He almost didn’t come back to the area at all because he didn’t think there was anything there for him. However, it turns out that he’s an art lover, and when he went to a showing of Mrs. Paget’s paintings in Glasgow, he saw the painting she did of the old village and how she included the smoke rising from the shieling where Ian and Sovra were staying. That made him want to return to his old cottage and see who was there. So, the legend about a fire in the hearth bringing the Gunn heir home comes true.

There is an argument among the four of them whether Ian and Sovra should get the credit for Alastair’s return because they lit the fire in the hearth at the shieling or whether Mrs. Paget should get the credit because her painting is what drew it to Alastair’s attention, but it’s a good-natured debate. There is still the problem of the mortgage that needs to be paid, but Ian, Sovra, and Alastair find the solution to the problem when they finally go take a look at Castle Island, and Ann rescues them when they accidentally maroon themselves there. Since Ian was the first to spot the solution to their problem, Alastair thanks him by giving him the shieling so he and his sister can use it whenever they want. Alastair is able to save Kindrachill House and takes up his role as chieftain of the Gunn clan, which sets up the other stories that follow in this series.

My Favorite Parts

The best parts of the book for me were its timeless quality and the location. A secret house, forgotten by everyone, accessed by going behind a waterfall and climbing a hidden stone stairway is just the sort of place I would have loved as a kid. Even as an adult, I love the idea of a secret hideaway in a picturesque spot. The location and atmosphere are what I recommend to other readers the most. The imagery of the setting is wonderful, and it’s a great place to escape to mentally, if you can’t get to such a spot physically.

I also like books that bring up interesting facts and bits of folklore for discussion. At one point in the book, Ian explains singing sand to Sovra, which is dry sand that makes a sound when people walk on it under the right conditions. (This YouTube video demonstrates what singing sand can sound like on Prince Edward Island.) A less pleasant but still informative part is when Sovra breaks the necks of the fish they catch to kill them quickly. I’m not sure if I’ve heard of other people doing that when they fish or not. It makes sense when they explain it, but I know very little about fishing. I’ve never lived near bodies of water and haven’t gone fishing, and I get squeamish about things, so I’ve never asked.

On a day of heavy mists, Ian and Sovra are also fascinated with how muffled and mysterious the land looks and talk about how it probably inspired stories they’ve heard about ghosts and “second sight” and doppelgangers (although they say it as “doublegangers”). Ian explains how doppelgangers are like “the wraith of someone who’s still alive, so there are two of them.” This piece of folklore is why we refer to people who bear a strong resemblance to each other without being actual twins as doppelgangers. (Some people also call them “twin strangers.”)

In the Circle of Time

In the Circle of Time by Margaret J. Anderson, 1979.

This is the second book in the In the Keep of Time Trilogy. There are a couple of characters from the first book that appear in this one, but most are new.

Robert lives on his family’s farm outside of a small town in Scotland.  He loves to draw, but his father doesn’t think much of Robert’s art.  He wants Robert to take over the family farm when he’s grown, especially since Robert’s older brother, Duncan, disappeared two years earlier.  Everyone assumes that Duncan just got tired of the farm and ran off to the city to find work, but Robert has trouble believing that.  Duncan always loved Robert and looked after him, and Robert can’t believe that Duncan would just run off without even telling him.

One day, Robert goes to the ancient circle of stones that stands near his town, known as the Stones of Arden, to draw before school.  There, he happens to meet Jennifer, an American girl who has recently moved to the area because her father is working in the nearby city.  Jennifer has an interest in archeology, and she points out to Robert that there are depressions where there used to be stones in the middle of the circle that aren’t standing anymore.  She persuades Robert to help her do a little digging to see if they can find them.  As they dig, a strange fog comes in, and Jennifer sees a vision of dark-haired people also digging.  However, no one is really there because the ground where they were digging is undisturbed.  Robert doesn’t see the people, but he believes Jennifer when she tells him what she saw.  There are a lot of strange stories about the stones, and Robert has heard many of them from his grandfather.

Jennifer, although spooked by what she saw, refuses to believe any superstitious stories.  She persuades Robert to come back to the stones with her so that she can take another look at them.  However, when they do, the strange fog comes, and the kids suddenly find themselves many years in the future.

The kids learn where (or when) they are when they meet a boy named Karten, who was digging in the spot where Jennifer had seen him digging in her earlier vision.  He tells them that the year is 2179 (two hundred years after the book was written).  The kids can suddenly hear the sound of the ocean from the stones when they couldn’t before, and when they ask about it, Karten tells them that the polar ice caps melted in the 21^st century, raising the level of the ocean and bringing the water much closer to the stones.

The future is a harsh place, and Karten fears the people he calls “the Barbaric Ones.”  The Barbaric Ones are people from “across the sea” who, as Karten and his people explain, “have retained the ways of people who lived long ago. They are interested in wealth and machines and factories.” The problem is that resources are in short supply, so the Barbaric Ones kidnap people to use as slaves, gathering as much of the scarce resources as they can to sustain their standard of living.  Karten and his people don’t want to fight the Barbaric Ones if they can avoid it because they have lost people who tried to fight them and because they believe in the values of love and trust above all.

Jennifer is quick to insist that she and Robert return to the stones where they entered this strange and disturbing future, but Robert persuades her to stay awhile and meet more of Karten’s people. Karten particularly tells them about an older woman who told him before about other people from the past who came to their time (the kids from the first book in the series), and Robert is hopeful that this woman will not only be able to tell them how to get home but maybe also what happened to his brother, Duncan. Robert has started to suspect that when Duncan suddenly disappeared, he may have come to the this time period the same way he and Jennifer did and may still be there.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction:

I don’t generally go in for dystopian novels because I find them depressing. The real world has enough problems without trying to imagine new and worse ones. However, I do find it interesting that this book, which was written a few years before I was born, has a vision of the future that specifically addresses things that are of major concern to people in the early 21st century. It imagines that the polar ice caps have melted and the sea level has risen. Many of the old coastal cities are gone, and there are new cities and communities in areas where there weren’t before.

Because of what’s happened, the world’s population has separated into two parts that have different ways of coping with the situation. The “Barbaric Ones” are much more technology-oriented, but what makes them barbaric is the way they exploit other people to serve their purposes and support the lifestyle that they want to maintain, which is much harder to maintain in this new future. Karten’s people, on the other hand, have developed a more old-fashioned, communal style of living. In fact, it’s unusually communal, to the point where young children are raised collectively by the adults of the community, nobody really knowing or caring about who their birth parents are. When children are nine years old, they select families they want to join, usually because of similar interests they have, and are raised as children of that family. Karten also likes art, and so he joined a family of artists.

These two types of societies are extreme in their views and lifestyles, polar opposites of each other, and neither is really the sort of society that Jennifer or Robert want to be part of. Jennifer is unnerved that people in Karten’s society don’t really know or care who their parents are and just kind of pick families for themselves without attachment to their birth parents. It just seems unnatural to her. Karten explains that their view is that children belong to the community as a whole. If everyone is part of the same big community, what does it matter who they live with? Their concept of marriage or partnership is never fully explained, but there don’t seem to be any rules or even social conventions about who can live with whom. One girl, called Lara Avara, tells Jennifer that her chosen parental figures/mentors are a pair of women, which surprises Jennifer, who thinks of family in terms of mothers and fathers, one of each per family. However, the future people have a different concept of family that seems to be centered more around sharing personal interests, with no particular conventions around how the family should be shaped. The chosen parental figures/mentors raise the younger members who chose to join their family, teaching them skills and professions they have mastered, according to their interests. It is not explained in the story if these older women are or were married or lovers, and it doesn’t seem to be important to any of the characters in the story, either. Lara Avara just tells Jennifer, “There cannot be rules deciding whom you love and from whom you learn.” I see one disadvantage to not knowing who one’s parents and full-blooded siblings are because there would be no way to ensure against incest, which is worrisome because that tends to bring out certain genetic health problems and weakens the genetic pool of the community, especially if it goes on for generations (unless this society has thought of that and just doesn’t mention their solution during the course of the story – maybe the elders of the community who remember who has the same birth parents and who doesn’t will intervene if siblings try to match up with each other). In some ways, Robert is attracted to this style of life because it would make things easier for him. In his own time, his family undervalues his artistic gifts and his unpleasant, temperamental father forces him to do hard physical labor on the family farm. There are times when Robert would love to exchange his problematic family for one that would help him hone his craft and appreciate his personal talents.

For awhile, Jennifer worries that Robert likes these future people so much that he wants to stay there, and she’ll be stuck in the future with him. Unlike Robert, Jennifer is close to her family and happy in their time, and she wants to go home. The two of them are accidentally separated from each other when a character from the previous book in the series (Ollie) brings Robert back to their own time without Jennifer, through the tower that the previous set of characters had used for their time travels. As Robert figures out how to rescue Jennifer from the future, he discovers the truth about Duncan, who has not traveled through time at all (although it looked like that was the way the story was going to go) but really did run away from home, as people thought he did. Like Robert, Duncan was also unhappy about their home life. Although Duncan is better suited to the farm work than Robert, he also found life there stifling, constantly having to work for their father and deal with his angry moods. Their father’s attitude problems are what makes the farm life difficult for both boys, and Duncan also seems to have been feeling overworked and unappreciated. Although life as a teenage runaway has been difficult for Duncan, he has at least managed to find work (paid, unlike the farm work he was doing for his father, and payment is a monetary form of appreciation as well as providing the worker with a living) and the freedom to begin building a life of his own.

Rescuing Jennifer means returning to the stone circle where their time travels began. After Jennifer returns home to their time, she and Robert talk about their experiences. They feel badly that they were not able to help the future people more with their problems and dangers, but Robert says that maybe what’s important is what they’ve learned from the experience themselves and how it’s changed them. Their problems (just like Robert’s brother, Duncan) have always been in their own time, and they have to live their lives in the present. What they do in the present may also change the future and help make it a better place. By the end of the book, Duncan returns to his family’s farm to tell his parents that he’s all right. Duncan will not work on the farm again, as he once did, but he decides to take a new job nearby and help out on the weekends, which will make things easier for Robert. Their family has some healing to do. A talk with Robert’s grandfather also reveals that other members of Robert’s family have traveled through time in the stone circle, and although Robert’s grandfather did his time traveling many years earlier, the vision he got of the future was actually after Robert and Jennifer’s adventures. They can tell that it was further along in time by the people and things he saw, and it reassures them that their future friends will be all right in spite of everything.

Shadow in Hawthorn Bay

Shadow in Hawthorn Bay by Janet Lunn, 1986.

Mary (or “Mairi,” they spell it both ways) Urquhart and her cousin Duncan had always loved each other.  They were always close as children, feeling more like two parts of one person than separate people, and they always imagined that they would spend the rest of their lives together.  Then, Duncan’s parents, Mary’s Uncle Davie and Aunt Jean, decided that they wanted to travel to Canada, while Mary and her parents stayed at home in the Scottish Highlands.  Duncan hadn’t really wanted to go.  He was only eleven, and he promised Mary that when he was older, he would work hard to earn enough money to come back.  However, Duncan never came.  He only sent Mary a brief letter about the dark forest where he now lives.  Mary feels like the Duncan she knew is gone forever.

Four years later, in 1815, when Mary is fifteen, she has a strange feeling, like Duncan is calling to her from across the ocean.  All of her life, Mary has had a strange gift for seeing into the future or reading others’ minds.  The “gift of two sights,” people call it, but Mary doesn’t feel like it’s a gift.  It makes her uneasy, and she can’t control it.  She hears Duncan’s calls to her through her “gift,” but she is afraid because she doesn’t want to leave Scotland.  She wants Duncan to come to her.

However, she is unable to resist Duncan’s calls.  She asks her parents for help with money for her passage to Canada, but they tell her that she is wasting her time and that, even if they sold their family’s most precious heirloom to give her the money, there would not be enough for the return journey.  A family friend gives her the money instead, and although Mary doesn’t really want to accept it and doesn’t really want to go, she can’t help herself.

The journey to Canada is miserable, and when she finally arrives at the place where her aunt and uncle live, alone and without money, she learns something which she thought she had sensed during the journey: Duncan is dead.  Duncan committed suicide while Mary was still on the ship to Canada.  Mary has arrived too late.  To make matters worse, one of the family’s neighbors, Luke Anderson, tells her that her aunt and uncle gave up the idea of farming in Canada and have already begun the journey back to Scotland.  Mary has no money to follow them, and they have no idea that she’s now in Canada, alone.

Luke takes Mary to Mrs. Colliver, who tells Mary a little about her family and their life in Canada and why they decided to leave.  Mary is devastated by the loss of Duncan and tries to tell Mrs. Colliver about how she felt that Duncan had been calling out to her, but Mrs. Colliver tells her that she doesn’t believe in ghosts or things like that.  Although Mary knows that her “gift” is real and so are spirits, she learns that others in the community share Mrs. Colliver’s no-nonsense, disbelieving attitude toward such things.  Mary, in her despair, wants to rush straight back to Scotland, but Mrs. Colliver, with her practicality, points out that Mary can’t possibly get there without money.  She tells Mary that she can stay with her family, that she will give her room and board in exchange for help with chores and that she can earn extra money for weaving and spinning.  Mary is clumsy at household chores because she was always better with animals at home, but when Mrs. Colliver sees Mary’s skills with animals, she is appreciative.

Life is hard in the small farming community.  Mrs. Anderson, Luke’s mother, explains to Mary that most of the people who live there are refugees.  When they were young, their families moved there from the Thirteen Colonies that now make up the United States because they were Loyalists.  When the Revolution came, they couldn’t stay, and so had gone north to Canada, where they struggled to establish a new community for themselves with their small homesteads. During her time there, Mary witnesses the death of a baby and the hardships of this strange place, seeing why Duncan didn’t like it there.  They tell her that Duncan was a strange boy who would seem bright and happy one day, but black with depression the next, something Mary remembers in him even before he went to Canada. 

The people are kind and welcoming to Mary, although they find her a bit strange.  As Mary struggles to make a life for herself, hoping to earn enough money to return home, she slowly comes to appreciate Luke’s kindness and help.  She learns healing arts and the use of herbs from another woman in the community, developing new skills.  In helping others, she earns their appreciation and a place in their community.  Luke Anderson becomes very fond of Mary, but she still mourns for her lost Duncan.  In spite of his kindness, she doesn’t see how she can make this strange, hard, dark forest of Canada her home, where it doesn’t even seem like the spirits she believed in and that seemed to protect her when she lived in Scotland exist.

Mary is melancholy and feels like she doesn’t belong in Canada.  It distresses her that she can no longer feel Duncan’s presence . . . although she can oddly hear him calling to her sometimes.  Mary also unnerves people when she makes predictions that come true and speaks about ghosts and spirits.  When she almost gives in to her homesickness and depression and kills herself, lured to the spot where Duncan drowned himself by his ghostly calls to her, she finally sees Duncan’s death for what it really was and finds the courage to refuse to follow him down the dark path that he chose for himself and to fight for the life she has been building, the one she really wants to live.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

This book is part of a loose trilogy, involving ancestors and descendants of the Anderson and Morrisay families.  All of the books take place in or near Hawthorn Bay in Canada, but at different time periods.  Some of the characters are psychic, like Mary, or have the ability to travel through time, like Susan in The Root Cellar, who is apparently Mary’s granddaughter.  The connection between Mary and Susan is never stated explicitly, but it’s implied by their last name, shared psychic abilities, and comments that a friend makes about Susan’s grandmother in The Root Cellar.  In this series, the characters from each of the books generally don’t appear in any of the others (except, perhaps, for Phoebe, who appears briefly in this book and is the main character in the third story).  Most of the time, you only know about the family connections by reading the books and taking note of the last names.  The books go backward in time as the series progresses, and the connection between the Anderson and Morrisay families is only obvious in The Root Cellar.

With the deaths that occur in the book, discussions of suicide, and the influence of Duncan’s selfish, malevolent spirit, this is not a book for young kids. I’d say that readers should be middle school level or older. There is also some implied sex and pregnancy out of wedlock when one of Luke’s brothers gets one of Mary’s friends pregnant. Her friend doesn’t give the details of what happened, but from what she says, it’s implied that Luke’s disreputable brother forced himself on the girl and that she went along with it because she didn’t know what else to do. The description of that incident is minimal, but older readers will understand what happened. There is a scandal in the community because of it, and the disreputable brother leaves rather than face the consequences of his actions.

Themes and Spoilers

I enjoyed the book for its references to Scottish folklore, which Mary believes in and seems to be in touch with through her “gift” and for Mary’s growing confidence in her abilities and more mature understanding of what her cousin was really like and what her relationship with him really was.  In some ways, I do feel sorry for Duncan because he seems to have been suffering from some kind of mental illness, possibly bipolar disorder or manic depression, which would explain how his moods could shift so abruptly and dramatically.  However, Duncan was also a selfish and controlling person.  Although Duncan’s death was sad, Mary realizes that his end was of his own making, and it’s not the future she wants for herself.  There are some disturbing scenes in the story.  Mary witnesses the deaths of others, including a baby, because it is a harsh environment, where people sometimes succumb to sickness or bad weather, although these deaths are not described in too much detail. 

There are also some frightening moments, like when Duncan’s ghost almost convinces Mary to kill herself and when he similarly lures a young boy, Luke’s younger brother, to the spot where he drowned and almost kills the boy because Mary finds the little boy comforting and Duncan doesn’t want her to be comfortable and happy.  In the beginning, readers see Duncan through Mary’s fondness for him, so the true darkness of his personality isn’t immediately apparent, although I had some misgivings about him from Mary’s first description of how they played together as children.  I didn’t like the way she described how he would tease her until she became angry or hurt and then he would sulk until she comforted him.  She says that wasn’t really fair, but to me, it was disturbing because I have seen that kind of selfish personality before, and it’s never a good sign.  It shows right from the first that Duncan doesn’t really care about Mary’s feelings.  He cares only about his own feelings, and he has no interest in changing his behavior out of consideration for her.  In fact, the very idea that he should consider her feelings seems somehow insulting to him, even though he supposedly loves her.  He just thinks that she needs to reassure him that everything he does is fine whether it is or not.  In his view, Mary is obviously wrong to feel hurt even when he tries to hurt her because he has more right to his feelings than she has to hers and he should be able to behave any way he wants with no consequences.  That’s what Mary’s first description of Duncan said to me.  As soon as I saw that, even though some might consider it just the actions of an immature child, I had some suspicions about him.

My suspicions were somewhat confirmed before Mary left home. Her mother told her that she didn’t think Duncan was worth chasing after, calling him sulky and thoughtless, but the full truth of that doesn’t strike Mary until she confronts his spirit where he died. Because people in Canada don’t like to talk about Duncan much, when Mary first hears about his death, it isn’t immediately clear that he killed himself or how.  At first, it’s just somewhat implied, but when Mary is almost lured to her death, she sees the full truth about Duncan. 

Mary comes to realize that, although everyone, including Duncan and herself, felt like the two of them were two parts of the same person, they really weren’t.  Mary sees that not only can she live without Duncan, she has been living without him for years.  She lived without him for a time in Scotland, and she’s been living without him in Canada, and she can continue to live without him wherever she chooses to live the rest of her life.  When she was younger, she had thought of Duncan as being the stronger of the two of them because he was not plagued by the same “gift” she was, but she realizes that she is actually the stronger of the two of them.  Duncan’s “love” for her had also always been a selfish one.  He couldn’t bring himself to work hard and return to Scotland for her sake, but he expected her to give up everything, even her own life, to join him in Canada and in death.

When Mary realizes all of this, Duncan’s spirit loses its hold over her, and she comes to see that the darkness in him was darker than the forests that had seemed so frightening to her before.  Free from the shadow of Duncan’s death and his selfish spirit, Mary is able to see the beauty of Canada and to be more open to the good people around her, forging a new future with a better man.

Guns in the Heather

Guns in the Heather by Lockhart Amerman, 1963.

This book was the basis for the Disney made-for-tv movie The Secret of Boyne Castle. However, the book and the movie are very different.  Although they have a similar premise, many details were changed in the movie version, the first of which is that the location of the story was moved from Scotland, as it was in the original book, to Ireland.

Jonathan Flower, sometimes called “Posy” by his friends, spends most of his time at various boarding schools.  His mother died when he was very young, and his father has a government job that takes him all over the world, so Jonathan has been in boarding schools in various countries, seeing his father whenever he can during school breaks.  For the most part, Jonathan doesn’t really mind it.  He and his father get along pretty well, and he knows that his father’s work is important.

Right now, he’s at a boarding school in Scotland.  He’s made a lot of friends there, spending holidays like Christmas and Easter at various friends’ homes.  He’s also developed an interest in rugby and cricket.  He anticipates that his father will meet him at the end of the school year so that they can go mountain climbing together over the summer break.  However, shortly before his father is expected to arrive, Jonathan receives a telegram from him, saying that he is to go to a certain place and meet a Mr. Finch.  Because the telegram contains certain words that this father uses when a situation is urgent, Jonathan goes to meet Mr. Finch and is kidnapped.

Mr. Finch, who also goes by the alias Dr. Fisher, holds Jonathan captive in a house, pretending that Jonathan is a patient who has volunteered for an experimental treatment.  Fortunately, Jonathan’s father, disguised as a milkman, soon rescues him.

While Jonathan’s father, who is actually a government agent, attends to some of his duties, Jonathan tries to go to the American embassy, only to be misled and almost recaptured. For a time, he is on his own, unsure of who to trust and how to reconnect with his father. When the two of them finally meet again, they both seek shelter with friends, but their enemies aren’t far behind, no matter where they go.  They end up staying with friends who own an old castle, but their enemies are planning a siege.

My Reaction

The style of the writing in this book doesn’t make for a particularly easy read.  It’s not overly difficult, but it starts off slow and is very dense, unlike many more modern books.  The scenes also change quickly throughout the book, and I had trouble keeping track of who some of the characters were.  Overall, I preferred the movie, even though it didn’t follow the book very closely.

In the Disney movie version, a strange man drives onto the grounds of an Irish boarding school, stumbles out of his car, and whispers an urgent message to a teenage American exchange student (played by a young Kurt Russell and renamed Richard Evans) that is meant for his older brother.  Then, the man dies from a bullet wound.  Another man, who is ostensibly from the American embassy in Dublin, abducts Richard after saying that he needs to go to the embassy to make a statement about the stranger’s death.  Richard is also accompanied by an Irish friend, Sean, when he is lured away from the school, and his friend helps him as they escape from the enemy spies holding them captive.  The two of them search for Richard’s older brother (who they have only just learned is a spy, whereas Jonathan was aware that his father worked for the government) to give him the dead man’s message.  In both the book and the movie, there is a final showdown with the bad guys at a castle, but in the movie, they go to the castle to retrieve a secret message that the dead man left there.  I don’t think that the movie is available on dvd, but I have seen it on YouTube and Internet Archive.

Mystery on the Isle of Skye

Mystery on the Isle of Skye by Phyllis Whitney, 1960.

Cathy MacLeod has lived with her grandmother for years, ever since her parents died when she was very young.  Now, her grandmother is very ill and will probably have to live in a nursing home.  Cathy needs to find a new place to live, and her relatives are debating about who is going to take her.  So far, the only relative who has offered her a home is Aunt Bertha.  Cathy isn’t enthusiastic because Aunt Bertha only has a tiny apartment where she lives alone, and she’s only offering Cathy a home out of duty, not real affection.  Aunt Bertha hasn’t spent much time around children and doesn’t really understand them.

But, there is one other prospect.  Cathy’s other relatives, the Corbins, are taking a trip to the Isle of Skye, where Cathy’s grandmother came from originally, and her grandmother has arranged for Cathy to go with them while Aunt Bertha is on a business trip.  Uncle Jerry (Cathy’s mother’s brother) and Aunt Lila Corbin have two boys of their own, Don (who is about Cathy’s age) and Humphry, who goes by the nickname of Punch.  Cathy is happy about the chance to go with them to visit the island that her grandmother has told her so much about.

At first, Cathy feels a little awkward around the Corbins because she doesn’t really know them, and they don’t know her.  Aunt Lila is warm and welcoming to Cathy, but Uncle Jerry is a tease.  Don is a tease as well and very impatient with the whole idea of the trip.  He doesn’t care about the history or legends of Skye as much as Cathy does.  His only real interest is in photography.  Young Punch is friendlier, sharing the excitement of the trip with Cathy.

Before they left on the trip, Cathy’s grandmother gave her a mysterious box to take with her.  Cathy doesn’t quite understand it at first, but the box contains several smaller packages with instructions to open them at different times during the trip.  Some of the instructions are vague and force her to rely on other people to tell her when to open them and what to do with the contents.  The packages are part present, part “spell.”  Thanks to them, Cathy makes new friends in Skye and goes on an adventure that she will never forget.

My Reaction

There is no real magic in this story, no real magic spells, and there actually isn’t much mystery either, except for the mystery Cathy initially feels about what’s in the packages and what their real purpose is.  Cathy’s grandmother has a love of legend and mystery, and these special gifts are meant to serve special purposes: to acquaint Cathy more with her past on the Isle of Skye and share some special memories, to heal Cathy’s sadness, to help draw her closer to her other relatives, and perhaps, to help her find her way to a brighter future than the one she currently thinks is waiting for her back home.

The packages help Cathy to bond with her aunt, uncle, and cousins.  They’re meant to be a shared activity.  She has to open certain packages with certain relatives, and they have to take her to certain places to do certain things with the contents.  These shared experiences help draw them closer to each other.

Although this story doesn’t follow the traditional mystery format and it can’t even be called fantasy or pseudo-fantasy, it’s enchanting because of the subtle hints of mystery and fantasy surrounding Cathy’s surprise packages.  Readers get to wonder alongside Cathy what’s in them and where they’re going to lead her.  It’s a little slower and more subtle than most modern children’s books, but I find it refreshing and magical for those reasons.

The Secret of Roan Inish

The Secret of Roan Inish (aka The Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry) by Rosalie K. Fry, 1957, 1959 (first US edition), 1995 (movie tie-in).

This is the book that the movie The Secret of Roan Inish is based on. The movie tie-in book contains the text of the original book, which was called Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry (Child of the Western Isles), and pictures from the movie (the original book had black-and-white drawings). The movie follows the plot of the original book fairly well, although the location was changed to Ireland and some of the names were altered to reflect the change in location. For example, the family name in the book was McConville, not Coneelly, and Fiona’s cousin was Rory in the book and Eamon in the movie. My book, like the original, takes place in Scotland, and notations under the pictures call the characters by their original names.

Ten-year-old Fiona has been living in a big city ever since her family left the island of Ron Mor about four years earlier to seek new jobs and new opportunities. However, Fiona’s health has been poor, and her doctor has advised her to return to the seaside for the healthier atmosphere. The book begins with her journey to stay with her grandparents who still live close to Ron Mor. Fiona’s homecoming is tinged with both sadness and hope, as she reflects on the mysterious disappearance of her baby brother the day that her family left the island.

Although her brother apparently floated out to sea in his cradle after being left unattended on the beach, Fiona has the feeling that he is still alive somewhere close to the island. She learns that her cousin Rory also believes the local rumors that the boy is still on Ron Mor in the company of the seals that populate the area around the island. Moreover, Rory and other family members share Fiona’s longing to return to their old home and their family’s traditional way of life as fishermen. Fiona’s determination to find her younger brother and bring him and the rest of their family home to the island is touching and emphasizes the importance of family ties.

There is also an element of fantasy because of the story that Fiona’s grandfather tells about the family’s heritage, which helps explain their special connection to the sea and seals around the island. He and other members of the family believe that one of their ancestors was a selkie, a magical person who could change into a seal.  The story is gentle and upbeat, which makes a nice change from a lot of modern children’s books.  I think that it’s just plain magic.

Something that the book clarifies, which is more vague in the movie, is that everyone in Fiona’s family, except for her little brother, has red hair.  All of the McConvilles always have red hair, except for those who are apparently closer to their Selkie ancestry, who have very dark hair.  They couldn’t clarify that point in the movie because the girl playing Fiona is blonde, and everyone else has different hair colors, but that’s why her brother is so markedly different in his appearance.

Physical copies of the original book are expensive collectors’ items, but there is good news: it’s now available on Kindle and through Internet Archive (where you can borrow an electronic copy for free), so if you’re nostalgic or just curious, it’s easier to read it now!