THE MAGIC SUMMER

by Noel Streatfeild ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 1967

Summer as time suspended, as fulcrum between past and future, is a favorite theme of Juvenile authors and often, as here, there's more moral than magic to it. The four Gareths, eight through thirteen, are dispatched to their only available relative. Great-Aunt Dymphna, in western Ireland, when Mummy has to Join Daddy, suddenly stricken with some unexplained illness in some remote, unidentified spot in the Far East. Great-Aunt Dymphna sports a black cape and a man's tweed hat, spouts verses of Carroll and Lear and Chesterton in answer to the simplest question, and confounds the children altogether by leaving them to their own resources--which are slight--in her large, sparsely furnished, cobweb-strewn house. To compound their troubles, a boy of eleven appears, a fellow passenger on their plane, claiming to be the son of a hunted emigre from a communist country; he calls himself Stefan and begs sanctuary. Twelve-year-old Penny struggles to cook and clean and console her disgruntled brood and, with older brother Alex, to sneak food to constantly complaining Stefan. A minor crisis and the acerbic advice of an older friend cause the children to admit that there's method to Aunt Dymphna's madness and little that can be said for themselves. Stefan is revealed as a runaway movie star and returned with no regrets, and the children settle down to enjoy what is left of the summer, secure in their new-found abilities and the knowledge that Daddy will get well. In snippets of dialogue, in insignificant scenes, Noel Streatfeild shows her customary skill, but the plot is just too silly, the message too manipulated to carry conviction. And the drawings are inappropriately immature.

Pub Date: March 31, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION