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Fairacre #14
THE WHITE ROBIN by Miss Read (1981-01-01) Paperback
When a white robin comes to the quiet village of Fairacre, it becomes the focus of nationwide attention.Nicknamed 'Snowboy’, 'Snowball’, 'Snowflake', the villagers adopt him as their own. But their pride is short-lived and their hopes brutally dashed to the ground when tragedy strikes. However, bitterness does not last in the hearts of those at Fairacre, and it is not too long before their patience and their faith are rewarded.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Miss Read
157 books514 followersDora Jessie Saint MBE née Shafe (born 17 April 1913), best known by the pen name Miss Read, was an English novelist, by profession a schoolmistress. Her pseudonym was derived from her mother's maiden name. In 1940 she married her husband, Douglas, a former headmaster. The couple had a daughter, Jill. She began writing for several journals after World War II and worked as a scriptwriter for the BBC.
She wrote a series of novels from 1955 to 1996. Her work centred on two fictional English villages, Fairacre and Thrush Green. The principal character in the Fairacre books, "Miss Read", is an unmarried schoolteacher in a small village school, an acerbic and yet compassionate observer of village life. Miss Read's novels are wry regional social comedies, laced with gentle humour and subtle social commentary. Miss Read is also a keen observer of nature and the changing seasons.
Her most direct influence is from Jane Austen, although her work also bears similarities to the social comedies of manners written in the 1920s and 1930s, and in particular the work of Barbara Pym. Miss Read's work has influenced a number of writers in her own turn, including the American writer Jan Karon. The musician Enya has a track on her Watermark album named after the book Miss Clare Remembers, and one on her Shepherd Moons album named after No Holly for Miss Quinn.
In 1996 she retired. In 1998 she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature. She died 7 April, 2012 in Shefford Woodlands.
She wrote a series of novels from 1955 to 1996. Her work centred on two fictional English villages, Fairacre and Thrush Green. The principal character in the Fairacre books, "Miss Read", is an unmarried schoolteacher in a small village school, an acerbic and yet compassionate observer of village life. Miss Read's novels are wry regional social comedies, laced with gentle humour and subtle social commentary. Miss Read is also a keen observer of nature and the changing seasons.
Her most direct influence is from Jane Austen, although her work also bears similarities to the social comedies of manners written in the 1920s and 1930s, and in particular the work of Barbara Pym. Miss Read's work has influenced a number of writers in her own turn, including the American writer Jan Karon. The musician Enya has a track on her Watermark album named after the book Miss Clare Remembers, and one on her Shepherd Moons album named after No Holly for Miss Quinn.
In 1996 she retired. In 1998 she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature. She died 7 April, 2012 in Shefford Woodlands.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
April 25, 2020
A little book about pastoral life in an English village in the 50's.A simpler time where people cared for each other...a gentle timr.
July 8, 2019
My recent reading has been full of death and resurrection themes. The first half of this book about A Bird didn't hold my attention very well, until... it astonishingly did!
I think one of the greatest benefits of the Fairacre and Thrush Green books is the underpinning of a Charlotte Mason-type education. A careful reading will show the teachers taking the kids walking to look for frog spawn or maintaining a bird table outside the window furnished with meal worms. There is a very outside or nature oriented perspective that I find winsome.
I think one of the greatest benefits of the Fairacre and Thrush Green books is the underpinning of a Charlotte Mason-type education. A careful reading will show the teachers taking the kids walking to look for frog spawn or maintaining a bird table outside the window furnished with meal worms. There is a very outside or nature oriented perspective that I find winsome.
January 16, 2025
Surprisingly heavy for a Miss Read novel, but it was interlaced with hope and kindness.
September 25, 2018
Are you an ornithophile? If yes, grab a copy. You'll like this short and charming tale, revolving around a white robin, a small kid and the usual Fairacre crowd. That almost sums up, what the book is about :)
July 15, 2019
What an endearing little story! All of Fairacre shares in the excitement when an albino robin is born one fine spring day. Although the little bird is fated for an unfortunate end, the village schoolchildren are rewarded for their patience when another albino robin hatches two generations later.
August 3, 2021
I loved this little book! I’ve been wanting to read a Miss Read book for so long and came across this in a little phone box lending library. I love the author’s pragmatic and yet also beautifully descriptive way of writing with nature and the trials of people and their everyday life blending into one. It was a nostalgic and yet also a matter-of-fact book, which told of a bygone era in recent history. It was so much fun to meet the little white robin and how the story of the robin also told the story of the lives of the pupils and friends of Miss Read and Fairacre school. I definitely will be finding some more from this author to read!
November 30, 2021
Rather a short story, The White Robin by Miss Read is the fourteenth book in the Fairacre series. The village is abuzz with the news of a rare, albino robin that has been seen near the schoolyard. I love how the villagers came together in their love of nature.
September 22, 2024
Maternal mental health struggles underpin this deceptively gentle tale about blame, forgiveness, and a little white Robin's impact on a small town.
September 28, 2017
DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT YET READ THE BOOK. MAJOR SPOILER.
The story revolves around a white robin (with some red feathers) that has taken to live near the school. This excites virtually everyone, not just at the school but in the village also. Their resident expert on birds studies the robin and takes photographs of it. The kids in the classroom are also excited and love to watch the bird as it eats some mealworms that have been placed outside for it and the other birds.
The other theme is about a boy whose mother spends time in a nursing home for erratic behavior. He becomes a student at Miss Read's school and almost immediately exhibits bad behavior, become jealous of anyone praised but him and even destroying a good drawing one of the students had done.
The boy murders the robin in cold blood. The other students are angry at him (as they should be) and he ends up leaving the school. His behavior, according to some people, is simply due to how difficult a life he has led.
I don't accept that. To willingly murder an animal (or, even worse, a person) is a conscious decision made by someone who has absolutely no respect for that animal's life or that person's life. There is nothing that can change the action they did. You can't bring these innocent animals or innocent people back to life.
I know at one junior high not that far away some students were taking baby birds and putting firecrackers in their mouths and setting them off. What they did was just as bad as what the fictional student did. Both actions are unforgivable.
This is not a happy book to read. It's well written, yes, but still very disturbing.
The story revolves around a white robin (with some red feathers) that has taken to live near the school. This excites virtually everyone, not just at the school but in the village also. Their resident expert on birds studies the robin and takes photographs of it. The kids in the classroom are also excited and love to watch the bird as it eats some mealworms that have been placed outside for it and the other birds.
The other theme is about a boy whose mother spends time in a nursing home for erratic behavior. He becomes a student at Miss Read's school and almost immediately exhibits bad behavior, become jealous of anyone praised but him and even destroying a good drawing one of the students had done.
The boy murders the robin in cold blood. The other students are angry at him (as they should be) and he ends up leaving the school. His behavior, according to some people, is simply due to how difficult a life he has led.
I don't accept that. To willingly murder an animal (or, even worse, a person) is a conscious decision made by someone who has absolutely no respect for that animal's life or that person's life. There is nothing that can change the action they did. You can't bring these innocent animals or innocent people back to life.
I know at one junior high not that far away some students were taking baby birds and putting firecrackers in their mouths and setting them off. What they did was just as bad as what the fictional student did. Both actions are unforgivable.
This is not a happy book to read. It's well written, yes, but still very disturbing.
September 1, 2015
Despite my love of Miss Read's prose and her delightful line-drawing illustrations I feel let down with this little volume in which a teacher and class 'discover' and observe, even protect the comings and goings of an albino robin through the course of a year.
At peril of 'spoilers' I will restrain more description, other than to say that overall I didn't perceive a change in any of the characters.
At peril of 'spoilers' I will restrain more description, other than to say that overall I didn't perceive a change in any of the characters.
February 9, 2014
A lovely little book, as usual set in Fairacre, simple, charming but very readable, a book to read on a summer afternoon sat on the garden. I love it because it involves the whole village in the quest to keep the robin "safe".
July 15, 2014
I'm with Mrs. Pringle. Too many people were willing to make excuses for the hateful Simon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
March 23, 2015Probably one of the sweetest of the Fairacre "stories". I am just fascinated by the love that the English people had for nature.
October 2, 2018
A quiet account of a minor controversy in an idyllic English village. Perhaps too quiet for readers accustomed to faster-paced or more exciting stories. I enjoyed the slow pace and the attention to details of places and people that only a longtime observer would notice, but it seemed odd that the main crisis of the story, precipitated by an act of impulsive cruelty in full view of dozens of people, is resolved offstage, with both the terrible and kind aspects of that resolution witnessed only via third-party reports. But perhaps this is typical of the genre of "gentle reading" English-village stories of which this is a classic example. Anything too terrible must take place outside the view of the eternally calm schoolmistress and the forever idyllic village green. Probably off in a city someplace.
It's an enjoyable story, though, despite the odd sense of placid disconnection between the village of Fairacre and the events that briefly bring a flurry of public attention and a minor crisis of cruelty to its doorstep. And since there seems to be a deliberate parallel between the albino bird of the title and the troubled child who briefly attends Miss Read's class, perhaps it's also intentional that the child, like a wild bird, appears and disappears from her life with much of its private life obscure and known only by report and conjecture.
It's an enjoyable story, though, despite the odd sense of placid disconnection between the village of Fairacre and the events that briefly bring a flurry of public attention and a minor crisis of cruelty to its doorstep. And since there seems to be a deliberate parallel between the albino bird of the title and the troubled child who briefly attends Miss Read's class, perhaps it's also intentional that the child, like a wild bird, appears and disappears from her life with much of its private life obscure and known only by report and conjecture.
March 6, 2019
I just love, love Miss Read. I am thankful she was so prolific because whenever I find the world too ridiculous or depressing, I turn to the Fair Acre and Thrush Green series. She sets things right again with her beautiful descriptions of the English countryside mid-20th century and simple tales of children learning about what is right and good. It's like having a drink of cold, clear, pure sweet water after a steady diet of harsh, tooth rotting, gut expanding, overly flavored soda. Oh, the simple things can be a joy! Enjoy beauty when you see it. Be understanding of each other. Deflate conflict when possible. Respect nature.
Extra good bit: I am concurrently reading (and will stretch it out for most of the year) The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, and lo! she too references a white robin. They are a real thing!
Extra good bit: I am concurrently reading (and will stretch it out for most of the year) The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, and lo! she too references a white robin. They are a real thing!
May 16, 2021
When asked what I was reading I replied “Miss Read”. “It’s a comfort to read in these times”. That is what I love about all of her books. They comfort me somehow. Things go wrong for the characters and life is sometimes hard. But I still feel good at the end of each book. Yes they are a simple read, not the lyrical prose of Jane Austen that I love. But, Miss Read never fails to send me to the dictionary to check out a interesting word and I love her descriptions of the countryside.
So, when you crave some quiet time, make a cup of tea and visit Fairacre or Thrush Green. You won’t regret it.
So, when you crave some quiet time, make a cup of tea and visit Fairacre or Thrush Green. You won’t regret it.
October 12, 2017
About halfway through this takes a much darker turn than I expect from Miss Read books, although she does often deal with difficult subjects related to small-town country life (e.g. the Coggs family). This is a more unsatisfactory story, though, because the disturbance comes from out of town and soon leaves again, so there's not as much of a feeling of resolution among our usual characters.
March 31, 2020
There is, for me, something in Miss Read’s books that makes me laugh & touches my heart. I do appreciate that these aren’t for everyone, but, there’s more in these than you think. They do touch on issues you wouldn’t expect. Highly recommended.
January 1, 2025
A delightful story of an albino robin in the village of Fairacre and the effect it has on the villagers. As always the author's viewpoint is that of the village school headteacher so we get a glimpse into her life as well as the observations of the natural world.
January 6, 2020
Some beautiful descriptions, but a the ending a bit too neat and tidy
February 1, 2021
A young people's story about an albino robin and the joy, sorrow, hope it brings to a small English village.
December 12, 2021
4 stars.
November 22, 2022
Another absolute gem by Miss Read - beautiful, moving, flawlessly written and gorgeously narrated by June Barrie. Simply perfect!
December 1, 2023
This is a Miss Read that I hadn't read before(!). It was a perfect slice of village life.
May 30, 2024
I enjoyed this reading. It was a sweet story.
December 27, 2024
I really should class these as historical novels - they are so perfectly of their time - a time I can just about remember. This was perfect listening whilst knitting Christmas presents!
May 3, 2025
This was a little hard to read. Def some darker themes in this latter middle part of the series. Tyler’s Row, Farther Afield and now The White Robin.
March 16, 2017
A lovely little book and a very fast read.
April 6, 2017
charming - but a bit thin. It felt like I was overhearing a random conversation at a coffeehouse.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews