The art of conveying mature emotional experience through the actions of children is one for which Rumer Godden has long been particularly loved. It has characterized some of her finest novels, An Episode of Sparrows, The Greengage Summer, and The River among them. Never has she employed it more gracefully and with more clear-eyed insight than in this tale of how an aloof and silent boy, by an act of loving-kindness, is drawn into the warmth of human society.
Marta, the maid in a fine modern London house, was unhappy that her kitchen had no "good place"—no little shrine for Our Lady and the Holy Child such as had graced the one room of her Ukrainian home years ago. How Gregory, the boy, came to understand her need and try to fill it, how he went through one difficulty and disappointment after another to bring it about, and how he finally succeeded by a creative act of his own, is the whole of this simple story. Yet it has a subtlety and humor and truth to life that make it irresistibly moving.
Carol Barker, who was chosen by Rumer Godden to illustrate this book, has done it with affection, beauty, and dignity.
Jacket design by Abner Graboff, illustration by Carol Barker.
—from the dust jacket
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