Thursday's Children by Rumer GoddenMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Rumer Godden is a good story teller from my childhood and frequent trips to the Alvin Bolster Ricker Memorial LIbrary and Community House in Poland, Maine, where any book about a place that wasn't Poland, Maine was exciting. Her writing is just that: plain old good story telling. She's sort of Anne Tyler with less bitter in the sweet, Rosamund Pilcher in 150 fewer pages, Mary Stewart without the heavy romance, Angela Thirkell without the uppercrust. I like her, but I'd almost completely forgotten about her, until I found two books by her at the church rummage sale in December, and here she is back!
First off, this edition of THursday's Children has, hands down, the ugliest cover I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. I am not an artist, and I am pretty sure I could draw a more normal looking child's face than the one adorning both front and back of the book. I finally removed the paper cover and threw it away--far to painful to look at!
Secondly, the story focused on ballet, and two kids in the same family who love it. As I think back through it, I realize that the characters are quite flat, the characterization virtually always direct, and Doone and his sister Crystal are both unrealistic children, but: I looked forward to curling up with the book for a few evenings. The book was published in 1984, which startled me: it feels like it was written in the 30's - 50's for some reason. Anyway. A pleasant read, so: three stars it is!
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