School Library Journal
Gr 5-7 Set in contemporary Cornwall, these short stories have an old-fashioned flavor of sentimental pathos. All are more of less tinged with the occult. Two involve Knockers, the little folk who bring luck to farmers; one is about a determined child who makes her way home through a storm only to find that her grieving family cannot see her ghost. In another, an ostracized boy with a twisted foot swims off to live with the seals. These tales portray a world in which kindness is a rare virtue, and good ends are sometimes achieved by dubious means: the Knockers use something very like blackmail to persuade farmer Barbery to respect his land, and the child Kate relies on a rather deceitful capitalist venture to help Miss Marney , a witchy recluse. The characters seem remote, and the dialogue is unconvincing. Children will be better served by real Cornish folk tales or by Eleanor Farjeon's longer and more sophisticated Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (Lippincott, 1961; o.p. ) . Gale Eaton, formerly at Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Mass.