Customer Reviews
Lost and found - By: Cassandra, 25 Jan 2007 
I first read this wonderful little book as a nine year old brimming with imagination.I still have that first copy, split at the seams & yellowing badly, thirty eight years later. The story has stayed with me always. When I attempted to find a copy for my daughter ten years ago, when she was also nine, I was unable to find one & was told it was out of print. I was delighted to find it again on Amazon by accident.
It is testament to the storytelling ability of Uttley-and, despite what other reviewers say-her sensitive,childlike telling of the story that it so vividly memorable. It is a story of imagination rather than harsh reality-and it is magical because of it.
A Glimpse into the Past - By: Nadia, 12 Jan 2007 This book captivated me as a child for it's atmosphere steepedin ancientness & the mysteries of the deep countryside.
Susan - the country child - was born & brought upin an old farmhousein remote Darbyshire, which had beenin her family for hundreds of years. All the furniture had been handed down through generations & seemed to speak to her. The routine of life on the farm hadn't changed all that much either. In the summer, Irish workers came to harvest the fields & brought their strange accents & ways, & songs. At Christmas the mummers came & acted out their old & ancient rhymes, as they had always done, since nobody knows when. It's intriguing to read about her family, farming on the steep hillside. I used to long to have that background of tradition & life carrying on the same - far away from modernness.
Susan wasn't a very ordinary girl - she was sensitive to subtle things. She listened to the trees & the wind & the hills. And she was imaginative. The Country Child captures her inner life.
Memorable Story of Girl on a Farm in Victorian England - By: cathmary, 06 Jul 2006 I read this book as a 12-year-old Texan livingin Edinburgh, & it has stayed with me over a quarter of a century. It's the story of a yearin a 9-year old girl's life on her family's farmin Victorian-era England. Little Susan Garland is an only child, highly imaginative, & used to keeping herself entertained. The descriptions of life on the farm, her walks to school, the farm animals, the holidays, are intensely vivid, & it brought late 19th century rural England alive to a 1970's American city girl.
A sample paragraph from the chapter "December":
"Holly decked every picture & ornament. Sprays hung over the bacon & twisted round the hams & herb bunches. The clock carried a crown on his head, & every dish-cover had a little sprig. Susan kept an eye on the lonely forgotten humble things, the jelly moulds & colanders & nutmeg graters, & made them happy with glossy leaves. Everything seemed to speak, to ask for its morsel of greenery, & she tried to leave out nothing."
It's not for everyone: children who want a lot of adventurein their books, or who prefer books with a lot of interaction between characters may find it boring.
A beautifully written account of growing up in Derbyshire - By: , 15 Mar 2003 A beautifully written book, based on Alison Uttley's own childhood, growing up on a farm near Cromfordin Derbyshirein the early 1900's. A very gentle read, full of fascinating information about lifein another age.
a disappointing book full of affectation - By: , 08 Dec 2001 
The authot tried too much to writein a 'literary"/poetic style. Her attempt to recreate a childish point of view doesn't ring true.Both attempts, at writingin a poetic style & the representation of the childish view seems forced. It provides some information of interest & it has some lovely descriptions, but basically it makes a tiresome reading. Those who are interstedin the subject are advised to read FLORA THOMPSON & the wonderful A CHILD IN THE FOREST by WINIFRED FOLEY. They, unlike Uttley, wrote beautifully.
