THE LITTLE DARK THORN

by Ruth Arthur ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 1971

Focusing on the relationships that shape her personality, structured around the three houses that represent periods in her development, this is an unhurried, loosely plotted chronicle of a girl's growing up. Merrie, whose mother is Malayan, is six and rebellious when she arrives in England to live with her father's Aunt Emma. Later her father marries and she goes to live with him and Birgit, his understanding Norwegian wife. Finally, at seventeen, while visiting her stepmother's parents in Norway, she resolves old conflicts and clarifies her goals for the future. Though comforted by Emma and Birgit and scattered friends along the way, Merrie resents her father from the beginning when he takes her from her unmarried Malayan mother to a better life in England; it is not until the end that the two learn to live together amicably. The events are credible enough, although some seem gratuitous (as a child, Merrie is followed one day in the woods by a strange man; later and more centrally, her half-sister [Birgit's baby] is drowned in a lake about which Merrie has had intense forebodings). But there is no depth to the characters or subtlety in their relationships, as in Irene Hunt's superior treatment of parallel themes in Up a Road Slowly.

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION