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Oxford University Press The Way to Sattin Shore.
Kate Tranter's search for the truth about her dead father leads her to Sattin Shore and an encounter with the past
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
13 people are currently reading
200 people want to read
About the author
Philippa Pearce
78 books113 followersPhilippa Pearce was an acclaimed English author of children’s literature, best remembered for her classic time-slip novel Tom’s Midnight Garden, which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal and remains a staple of British children’s fiction. Raised in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, in the Mill House by the River Cam, Pearce drew lifelong inspiration from her rural upbringing. Educated at the Perse School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge, she studied English and History before working as a civil servant and later producing schools’ radio programmes for the BBC.
Her debut, Minnow on the Say (1955), inspired by local landscapes and a childhood canoe trip, was a Carnegie runner-up and later adapted for television. Tom’s Midnight Garden, also rooted in her childhood environment, became her most celebrated work, inspiring multiple adaptations for stage, screen, and television. Pearce went on to publish over thirty books, including A Dog So Small, The Squirrel Wife, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak, and The Way to Sattin Shore, with several earning further Carnegie commendations.
Married briefly to Martin Christie, with whom she had a daughter, Pearce returned to Great Shelford in 1973, where she lived until her death in 2006. Her legacy continues through the annual Philippa Pearce Lecture, celebrating excellence in children’s literature.
Her debut, Minnow on the Say (1955), inspired by local landscapes and a childhood canoe trip, was a Carnegie runner-up and later adapted for television. Tom’s Midnight Garden, also rooted in her childhood environment, became her most celebrated work, inspiring multiple adaptations for stage, screen, and television. Pearce went on to publish over thirty books, including A Dog So Small, The Squirrel Wife, The Battle of Bubble and Squeak, and The Way to Sattin Shore, with several earning further Carnegie commendations.
Married briefly to Martin Christie, with whom she had a daughter, Pearce returned to Great Shelford in 1973, where she lived until her death in 2006. Her legacy continues through the annual Philippa Pearce Lecture, celebrating excellence in children’s literature.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
December 24, 2023
This was such a favourite of mine when I was a child. I related to the main character, Kate, who loved her Syrupy-puss the way I loved my Jubilee, spent lots of time in her room, had an elderly grandmother living downstairs, rode her bike everywhere and loved her best friend dearly. Looking back, that's perhaps why I enjoyed the book so much. A lovely story, with plenty of adventure and mystery :)
July 29, 2023
one of my childhood favourites
June 6, 2023
Loved it , couldn’t stop . Twists and turns and mysteries .
March 12, 2017
I read this because the school library teacher gave it to my daughter. It's a great story and I'm sure she'll enjoy it.
February 4, 2018
This was one of my favourite books to read as a child. The way Phillippa wrote it, conjured up so much imagination in my young mind. I felt I could literally see the characters, I could see life through Katy's eyes as if it were my own, feel her struggles, and even see Satin Shore. It made me fall in love with reading even more than I already was and I remember finding it amazing that a book could make me disapear into another world, a feeling I still love now. I still read this book every now and then.
Very well written story that a lot of people/children can relate to. The ups and downs of family life, a life with big brothers, a hard working single Mum, the trials and tribulations of friendships and the beautiful relationship between Kate and her cat Syrup and then the bombshell of her 'secret' family and the hauntingly beautiful Sattin Shore.
Not much of a book review, but just wanted to share my love of this book and how it shaped my fondness of reading to this day.
Very well written story that a lot of people/children can relate to. The ups and downs of family life, a life with big brothers, a hard working single Mum, the trials and tribulations of friendships and the beautiful relationship between Kate and her cat Syrup and then the bombshell of her 'secret' family and the hauntingly beautiful Sattin Shore.
Not much of a book review, but just wanted to share my love of this book and how it shaped my fondness of reading to this day.
August 28, 2013
My favourite book when I was growing up, such thoughtful writing without patronising young people reading it. Descriptive enough to paint beautiful sometimes moody scenes, but not overbearing that young people or even adults bore of the writing. It's actually very exciting as you get into it, and I felt my heart beat rather loudly at parts, brilliant book!
February 20, 2010
Kate, a sensitive ten-year-old, lives with her mother, brother and grandmother in a peaceful home. Then a letter is delivered that changes all their lives. The story is told through Kate's eyes combining everyday events with more exciting and mysterious ones. Well-written and very readable.
June 4, 2018
I bought this book among several other paperbacks from my childhood at a secondhand bookshop last year. I remembered the opening chapters being read to us by my primary school teacher but for some reason we didn't finish the book and I never found out how it ended. I've decided to re-read a few children's books from that period, and I started with this one. I love a couple of Pearce's other books, Tom's Midnight Garden and my particular favourite, A Dog So Small.
This one has that same, slightly eerie, lonely feel to it - like Ben in A Dog So Small, Kate Tranter is the shy, quiet one in a busy, bustling family and prone to loneliness and introspection. Even her bedroom is tucked up in the attic away from her older brothers and her relationship with her best friend, Anna, is a slightly wary one with Kate never quite sure if she's brave enough to knock for her. As such, I could identify quite a lot with Kate and I suspect this might have been what I liked about the start of the book when I was a child.
Kate is aware that her father Fred died when she was born - the shock sending her mother into labour - but hasn't given him a great deal of thought until his gravestone disappears from the local churchyard. It's then that her oldest brother, Randall, tells her the gravestone couldn't have been his in the first place - it was the grave of an Alfred Tranter, while their father was a Frederick. All Randall remembers of their father himself is that he was a schoolteacher at a village school and that Fred and his brother Bob used to take him paddling at Sattin Shore, a lonely stretch of estuary Kate has never heard of before. It's then that Kate, longing for a connection with her lost father and suspicious of the secrets she's sure the rest of the family are keeping from her, decides she'll find Sattin Shore herself.
This is a fairly low-key domestic sort of mystery, although it does have a somewhat unnerving quality to it and not all the characters - I'm thinking in particular of Kate's Grandma Randall, in whose house the whole family now lives - are at all sympathetic. The decisions made by the adults around Kate appear to have been downright weird at times, and it's hard to imagine how they could ever have thought the secrets they keep from her were actually in her best interests. As a child I probably wouldn't have considered this, but as an adult I simply felt slightly worried by their behaviour and deeply sorry for poor Kate. I was also rather unconvinced by the book's ending - I don't think a family could ever recover from what happens at the story's climax, and certainly not as rapidly as they do.
All that said, though, this is a quietly atmospheric story that also made me feel nostalgic for a time when a ten-year-old could cycle alone for several hours into villages many miles away and nobody thinks this is weird, and also for a time when mysteries couldn't be solved with Google. If anything, this book must have seemed pretty nostalgic even in 1983 (the family never watch television, for instance, and Kate gets given a bowl of bread and milk when she's feeling ill as if it were the 1930s).
This one has that same, slightly eerie, lonely feel to it - like Ben in A Dog So Small, Kate Tranter is the shy, quiet one in a busy, bustling family and prone to loneliness and introspection. Even her bedroom is tucked up in the attic away from her older brothers and her relationship with her best friend, Anna, is a slightly wary one with Kate never quite sure if she's brave enough to knock for her. As such, I could identify quite a lot with Kate and I suspect this might have been what I liked about the start of the book when I was a child.
Kate is aware that her father Fred died when she was born - the shock sending her mother into labour - but hasn't given him a great deal of thought until his gravestone disappears from the local churchyard. It's then that her oldest brother, Randall, tells her the gravestone couldn't have been his in the first place - it was the grave of an Alfred Tranter, while their father was a Frederick. All Randall remembers of their father himself is that he was a schoolteacher at a village school and that Fred and his brother Bob used to take him paddling at Sattin Shore, a lonely stretch of estuary Kate has never heard of before. It's then that Kate, longing for a connection with her lost father and suspicious of the secrets she's sure the rest of the family are keeping from her, decides she'll find Sattin Shore herself.
This is a fairly low-key domestic sort of mystery, although it does have a somewhat unnerving quality to it and not all the characters - I'm thinking in particular of Kate's Grandma Randall, in whose house the whole family now lives - are at all sympathetic. The decisions made by the adults around Kate appear to have been downright weird at times, and it's hard to imagine how they could ever have thought the secrets they keep from her were actually in her best interests. As a child I probably wouldn't have considered this, but as an adult I simply felt slightly worried by their behaviour and deeply sorry for poor Kate. I was also rather unconvinced by the book's ending - I don't think a family could ever recover from what happens at the story's climax, and certainly not as rapidly as they do.
All that said, though, this is a quietly atmospheric story that also made me feel nostalgic for a time when a ten-year-old could cycle alone for several hours into villages many miles away and nobody thinks this is weird, and also for a time when mysteries couldn't be solved with Google. If anything, this book must have seemed pretty nostalgic even in 1983 (the family never watch television, for instance, and Kate gets given a bowl of bread and milk when she's feeling ill as if it were the 1930s).
April 26, 2020
Great writing and real plot but a book full of unreliable and often not very pleasant adults. An outrageous deception has been practised upon Kate and her brothers, but there seems to be no acknowledgement of this and no real retribution or even guilt amongst the adults involved. Deep and at times dark themes but an engaging central 10 year old with her cat being a major character, and some memorable scenes such as tobogganing in the snow.
September 21, 2018
Kate Tranter misses her dad, who died the day she was born - or so she was told. Like many real-life children missing a part of their family however, she is tenaciously desperate to learn about him and know more of the past; yet the adults in her life seem traumatised into shielding her from it. The truth seems to lie at the hamlet of Sattin some miles from home, and with her oldest brother's help, gradually Kate discovers some life-changing facts - and people - that eventually bring her family (and her dad, who is still alive after all) back together again. This beautifully told story by the author of Tom's Midnight Garden delves deep into children's home fears, insecurities and feelings and helps every reader realise the things we all need most in our lives: truth, peace, forgiveness and friendship. Despite being written in 1983, much of the story remains contemporary and UKS2 children of today could use it as a model for writing stories that describe their own feelings and those of others. There are detailed metaphor-laden descriptions of nature which children could enjoy and emulate (in particular a chapter on snow) and many options for continuing the story: the family's new life in Australia, Granny Randall's reconciliation with her son-in-law's past, Nanny Tranter & Syrup keeping each other company together in Sattin. PE and D&T links exist in building/repairing toboggans & bikes, then using them; whilst uncovering history and understanding the past would certainly parallel well with any KS2 history topic examining people's lives in the past. There are even passages in the kitchen on baking pastry and making strawberry jam! Perhaps the only downside is that at the story's conclusion, there are characters the reader still feels achingly sorry for: but even that maybe sends a Jacqueline Wilson-esque PSHE message about making the best of our circumstances regardless what hurdles we face. Certainly Kate herself is someone who never gives up trying to do so.
June 25, 2025
What wonderful writing! We are gradually introduced to Kate's family and, with her, learn of the untold story of her father. I imagine Kate must be about 11 years old. She is a very solitary child (although she has a strong bond with her eldest brother, missing their closeness) and a bit of a daydreamer. Her imagination is key to the way she responds to events. Because the story is focused on relationships, it is somehow timeless. A child might find it strange that people didn't all have a telephone in their house, but apart from that it could be any period in modern times. I love the way that some chapters could stand alone as short stories. My favourite is the chapter called Snow. I think Philippa Pearce must have loved the winter time. I have fond memories of the episode in Tom's Midnight Garden when he skates along the frozen river with Hattie. This is similarly powerful. The themes in this story of friendship and family are quite heavy. Kate does a lot of growing up through the winter, spring and summer that we follow her. She faces deeply emotional trials. I think it would be a challenging read for children under 10. The ending resolves a lot of issues but is not happy or comfortable for everyone.
April 16, 2018
I really enjoyed this book, particularly the mystery element it has to it. Initially, the story was a little bit slow and took a while to get into, but from around the middle of the book the story becomes really gripping and picks up pace. However, I did not like the last few pages of the book and I feel it let the story down after such a good middle section. Overall, I would recommend this book and it is a nice, easy read.
September 25, 2025
Somewhat dated and surprisingly dark, this is nevertheless a good story, with an engaging protagonist and some good twists along the way. The writing style is a bit odd, particularly near the beginning, and some of the dialogue feels a bit stilted, but maybe everyday speech was like that 40+ years ago (I am too young to remember). A satisfying read that feels longer than it is because there’s a lot going on.
June 15, 2021
It was a good one. Contained enough adventure and mystery to keep me going, I'd definitely recommend it for young minds. I don't feel it was captivating enough for people who are into thrillers like Agatha Christie, however it was surely for those who are immersed in the worlds of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.
August 29, 2017
Amazing.
July 24, 2019
A sweet, heartwarming story. Borrowed this from our public library years ago when I was a kid and loved it so much. One of the first books I remember re-reading as a kid.
August 16, 2019
I used to wish that I could be friends with Kate (or even be Kate, lol)
May 13, 2022
A satisfying story of a girl trying to figure out where her father went. She manages to work on this on her own with a certain amount of courage.
January 12, 2024
my first detective novel, my childhood
February 22, 2025
bua pues me ha encantadoooooo
June 22, 2019
Kate è timida, vive con la madre, la nonna materna e i suoi due fratelli maggiori. Non ha mai conosciuto il padre, morto il giorno della sua nascita. Ma da qualche tempo Kate è sempre inquieta, si chiede perché i fratelli litighino in continuazione e perché la lapide al cimitero sia scomparsa...
Noiosetto.
Noiosetto.
July 18, 2019
I read this when I was a student teacher. Luckily...I remember patches but not the whole book. Each chapter leads us through the eyes of Kate as she slowly tries to understand a very complex jigsaw puzzle about her own family. The writing is exquisite. You feel as you are there in her house, with her beloved cat Syrup. The description of Kate tobogganing on her Granny's silver tray or her Mother making pastry 'rub-rub-rub scatter-scatter-scatter dip rub-rub-rub' is beautifully evocative.
The reviews on the inside front cover say 'engrossing' and this is entirely appropriate.
I cannot say much as it will spoil the intensity of the plot but 'engrossing' is perfect. I simply have not been able to put this book down over the weekend. Highly recommended. Year 5 and Year 6?
The reviews on the inside front cover say 'engrossing' and this is entirely appropriate.
I cannot say much as it will spoil the intensity of the plot but 'engrossing' is perfect. I simply have not been able to put this book down over the weekend. Highly recommended. Year 5 and Year 6?
December 19, 2016
Since the time I have read Minnow on Say, I have wanted to read all the other books by Philippa Pearce. Her books are timeless children's classics which one can enjoy at any age! I love her writing - not all emotions are explained but the reader still can feel the currents. I loved Kate and her cat Syrup - they characters of the world. One of the best things to read on a cold cold winter day!
May 11, 2023
" ... Che pasticcio! Che imbroglio! Tutti si odiano, tutti anno paura, tutti fingono ciò che non è vero. ..."
Un'ambientazione pesante, greve di mistero, di cose non dette.
Difficile dare un'età a Kate sembra molto piccola in alcune situazioni ma decisamente più adulta in altre.
Mi sembra inaccettabile l'atteggiamento di nonna Tranter, nessuna madre avrebbe fatto le sue scelte!
Un'ambientazione pesante, greve di mistero, di cose non dette.
Difficile dare un'età a Kate sembra molto piccola in alcune situazioni ma decisamente più adulta in altre.
Mi sembra inaccettabile l'atteggiamento di nonna Tranter, nessuna madre avrebbe fatto le sue scelte!
January 3, 2022
I would love to know what age group this book is written for. I’ve re-read it over 24 hours. It starts slowly, but, is actually fast paced. The relationships are complex & there are a number of complicated twists to the plot. Highly recommended!
April 12, 2015
Such a great book with twists all the way until the end!
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews