Framed's 2007 Book Reviews

Thursday, April 19, 2007

"W" Author and 8th TBR Book
"The Children's Hour" takes place in England on the Bristol Channel and covers a time frame from the late 1930's to the present. It's about a family of five girls and a boy whose mother reads to them for an hour every evening. We don't really get to know much about the family except for two sisters, Mina and Nest, who live together in their elder years. Another prominent character is Lyddie, the daughter of another sister who was killed in an auto accident. Basically, this is a pleasant, comfortable novel. There's no earth-shattering plot and too much type spent on describing the scenery, (nice descriptions, just not terribly relevant). The book is also about secrets and getting them in the open. I liked the part the Internet plays in Mina's later life, something I don't see in too many novels but is really a large part of our society. Willet also mentions the titles of books that are read at story time and some sounded very interesting. This is a great quote about reading:
"She experiences a strange, yearning restlessness, a tingling of blood in her veins, when she hears for the first time the poetry of Thomas Edward Brown and O'Shaughnessy's "Music and Moonlight," and the lyrical prose of Richard Jeffferies. All through that late winter and early spring, she wanders like a small wraith, verses and phrases singing in her ears, images crowding in her mind, dazed by the glory of the English language, groping towards ideas she cannot, at nine, hope to understand."
Rating: 3.75
Posted by Framed at 7:05 PM

1 comments:
Stephanie said...
I have never heard of this book! It sounds interesting though. Yikes....like I need any more books to read!
5:14 PM