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‘End of Term’ by Antonia Forest
I’m very happy to be back at Kingscote with the Marlow twins, a year after their eventful Autumn Term, because I have plenty of questions I need answered. Did Nicola get promoted to Form IIIA, leaving...
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Chapter Three: Rehearsals and Team Practices Nicola, Tim and Lawrie are all in Lower IV A this year, along with Miranda, and Esther the new girl, and drippy Marie Dobson. I don’t think much of the...
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Chapter Four: Altogether Unexpected This is a short but dramatic chapter in which Lois proves to be even more odious than usual. It begins with Miss Craven, Miss Redmond and Lois having a meeting to...
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Chapter Five: Half-Term at Trennels There is a lot going on in this chapter. So, first, the Kingscote girls have a Christmas play rehearsal in the Minster, and during a break, Nicola has a chat with...
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Chapter Six: A Change of Cast Miranda has been watching the play rehearsals secretly, so she’s there to witness Miss Kempe’s frustration with Jess’s terrible rendition of Shepherd Boy, Dr Herrick...
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Chapter Eight: As It Turned Out The play looms and there’s further discussion about it in the art room. Miranda says it’s odd they’re all so unreligious about the play and Lawrie makes an unexpected...
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Chapter Nine: Right Way Round The narrative point of view in this book is all over the place, in a way that would exasperate most of the editors I’ve worked with. While the story is mostly told from...
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New Paperback Edition of ‘Dr Huxley’s Bequest’
There’s a new paperback edition of Dr Huxley’s Bequest out tomorrow, Monday 15 January. This new edition has exactly the same content as the first edition, but the print size has been increased...
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‘The Endsister’ by Penni Russon
I really enjoyed The Endsister, a thoughtful and beautifully composed ghost story for young readers. The Outhwaite family decide to uproot themselves from their comfortable semi-rural Australian life...
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What I’ve Been Reading: Non-Fiction
At the end of last year, I resolved to blog more about books I’d enjoyed. Mmm, that’s been going well, hasn’t it? Anyway, I have been reading more this year, but for some reason, I’ve been underwhelmed...
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‘Dr Huxley’s Bequest’ Miscellanea
For those who don’t follow me on Twitter (that is, the entire population of the universe, minus about 48 people), here are some bits and pieces about my latest book, Dr Huxley’s Bequest: – The Great...
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‘How Not To Be A Boy’ by Robert Webb
I really liked How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb, a funny, thoughtful and moving memoir about a boy who absorbed a lot of toxic messages about masculinity – and what happened when he grew up to be a...
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‘Peter’s Room’ by Antonia Forest
I have middling expectations for this book, the fifth in Antonia Forest’s series about the Marlow family. So far, I’ve enjoyed her school books far more than the holiday books, but Peter’s Room does...
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Chapter Three: ‘A Parsonage called Haworth’ So, the Marlows do their Christmas shopping, but we don’t find out the details of what they buy each another except for Nicola, who “bought everyone sticks...
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Chapter Four: Dispatches to Angora: I This chapter is mostly the Marlow’s version of Gondal, in which the Palladian Guards are ordered by the Regent to carry dispatches to a distant allied kingdom. The...
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Chapter Six: “All the Birds of the Air…” SPROG IS DEAD HOW COULD YOU DO THAT ANTONIA FOREST POOR LITTLE SPROG DYING ALONE IN THE COLD POOR NICOLA THIS IS SO UNFAIR. Of course, Nicola doesn’t allow...
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Chapter Nine: The Twelfth Day of Christmas The children are distraught because they’re forced to have a three-day break from Gondalling over the weekend. Nicola thinks them “all quite mad” but doesn’t...
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‘Peter’s Room’, Part Six
Chapter Ten: Hounds are Running My entire knowledge of fox hunting with hounds comes from watching Paradise Postponed and Brideshead Revisited, so I am just going to assume Antonia Forest has done her...
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Chapter Eleven: The Dispatch is Delivered One last bit of Gondalling, in which they finally arrive in Angora. Again, the plot doesn’t make much sense. Jason goes straight to the King because “the...
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If you’ve enjoyed Memoranda’s Antonia Forest discussions …
If you’ve enjoyed the Antonia Forest discussions at Memoranda, you might also be interested in these posts about twentieth century children’s books. I was entertained and educated by The Years of Grace...
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