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A Stitch in Time
Maria is always getting lost in the secret world of her imagination…
A ghostly mystery and winner of the Whitbread Award, newly republished in the Essential Modern Classics range.
Maria likes to be alone with her thoughts. She talks to animals and objects, and generally prefers them to people. But whilst on holiday she begins to hear things that aren’t there – a swing creaking, a dog barking – and when she sees a Victorian embroidered picture, Maria feels a strange connection with the ten-year-old, Harriet, who stitched it.
But what happened to her? As Maria becomes more lost in Harriet’s world, she grows convinced that something tragic occurred…
Perfect for fans of ghostly mysteries like ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’.
227 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1976
42 people are currently reading
1240 people want to read
About the author
Penelope Lively
132 books947 followersPenelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger.
Her other books include Going Back; Judgement Day; Next to Nature, Art; Perfect Happiness; Passing On; City of the Mind; Cleopatra’s Sister; Heat Wave; Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories; Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; Spiderweb; her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked; The Photograph; Making It Up; Consequences; Family Album, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award, and How It All Began.
She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List, and DBE in 2012.
Penelope Lively lives in London. She was married to Jack Lively, who died in 1998.
Her other books include Going Back; Judgement Day; Next to Nature, Art; Perfect Happiness; Passing On; City of the Mind; Cleopatra’s Sister; Heat Wave; Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories; Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; Spiderweb; her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked; The Photograph; Making It Up; Consequences; Family Album, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award, and How It All Began.
She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List, and DBE in 2012.
Penelope Lively lives in London. She was married to Jack Lively, who died in 1998.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
March 13, 2022
It's official; Penelope Lively is the only person who can make me interested in fossils.
I don't know what it is, or what it is she does, but she pulls me into every story she writes, even when they're about people who hunt for and talk about fossils.
I appreciate fossils as metaphors in stories. They are, after all, the traces of what is left behind, what was here, what isn't here any more.
Life is fleeting; it etches itself on stones, rubs its back on the walls of caves, leaves its mark wherever it may.
We're here, then we're gone, and maybe we're back again, in different forms.
These are the thoughts that Ms. Lively ponders here, in one of the many novels she wrote for middle grades and adolescent readers in the 1970s.
Yes, did you know that? Did you know that Penelope Lively had an abundant career writing chapter books for tweens and teens before she ever started writing novels for adults?
This one, I feel, gives a nod to the moody atmosphere of Jane Austen's Persuasion and the drama that takes place in that novel in Lyme Regis.
It moved at an incredibly slow pace, and my 13-year-old (who was the audience for this one) and I were frequently frustrated by that, but, ultimately, we were won over by the writing and the story.
I highly recommend this read for quiet, sensitive, or empathic people. What makes this protagonist feel different is also what makes her precious.
I don't know what it is, or what it is she does, but she pulls me into every story she writes, even when they're about people who hunt for and talk about fossils.
I appreciate fossils as metaphors in stories. They are, after all, the traces of what is left behind, what was here, what isn't here any more.
Life is fleeting; it etches itself on stones, rubs its back on the walls of caves, leaves its mark wherever it may.
We're here, then we're gone, and maybe we're back again, in different forms.
These are the thoughts that Ms. Lively ponders here, in one of the many novels she wrote for middle grades and adolescent readers in the 1970s.
Yes, did you know that? Did you know that Penelope Lively had an abundant career writing chapter books for tweens and teens before she ever started writing novels for adults?
This one, I feel, gives a nod to the moody atmosphere of Jane Austen's Persuasion and the drama that takes place in that novel in Lyme Regis.
It moved at an incredibly slow pace, and my 13-year-old (who was the audience for this one) and I were frequently frustrated by that, but, ultimately, we were won over by the writing and the story.
I highly recommend this read for quiet, sensitive, or empathic people. What makes this protagonist feel different is also what makes her precious.
November 28, 2016
This is a very fine book that adults will enjoy as much as young readers. It most certainly deserved being given the Whitbread award and is reminiscent of her earlier Carnegie Medal winner "The Ghost of Thomas Kempe". As in the latter we have a child who is intensely imaginative, thinks about the problem of time and tends to be misunderstood by parents. But Maria in "A Stitch In Time" is more quietly sensitive and introspective than James. She thinks more deeply about life and is more aware of the darkness it may hold.
While the book certainly has some excellent characterisation and makes effective use of flashes of gentle humour, what remain in the mind are those beautiful meditative sequences with a haunting sense of wonder when Maria finds herself slipping suddenly back into time.
As much as I liked her previous Carnegie Medal winner, I think this book is superior and a masterpiece of its type.
While the book certainly has some excellent characterisation and makes effective use of flashes of gentle humour, what remain in the mind are those beautiful meditative sequences with a haunting sense of wonder when Maria finds herself slipping suddenly back into time.
As much as I liked her previous Carnegie Medal winner, I think this book is superior and a masterpiece of its type.
August 22, 2020
Penelope Lively fans will be delighted with this thoughtful, quiet coming-of-age story where shy Maria undergoes a mild-but-meaningful sea change.
Seriously, did you hear what that cat just said to me?
Full of old houses, the seaside, fossils, photo albums, one stitched sampler and a silently chagrined father. Extroverts may find the book slow going--not that much actually happens.* But to introverts it just might feel like coming home.
________
*Super-intuitive readers may read the novel as
_________
Sample passage, complete with gently wry humor:
Seriously, did you hear what that cat just said to me?
Full of old houses, the seaside, fossils, photo albums, one stitched sampler and a silently chagrined father. Extroverts may find the book slow going--not that much actually happens.* But to introverts it just might feel like coming home.
________
*Super-intuitive readers may read the novel as
_________
Sample passage, complete with gently wry humor:
[B]ehind, the mothers shouted, “Be careful! Not so fast!” and somewhere a long way below the sea pushed and pulled uncaringly on the pebbles.
They descended, one after another, each intent upon his or her own self-preservation. Except, of course, for the mothers, who each felt burdened with a great many safeties, according to the fate of mothers, and were in states of anxieties which varied according to their personalities – in other words, noisily but only mildly concerned in the case of the Lucas mothers, silent and in a near-frenzy in the case of Mrs Foster.
October 16, 2021
In A Stitch in Time, we meet eleven-year-old Maria Foster who is heading down to Lyme Regis with her parents for a month of summer holiday. Maria is plain and small for her age, and also shy and sensitive, accustomed to being left on her own, for her parents who prefer a quiet life, treat her, in the words of Michelle Magorian who has written the intro to my copy, ‘like pleasant wallpaper’ (something poor Maria realises as well). In Lyme, Maria’s parents have rented a Victorian cottage, which looks pleasant from the outside (painted in white and green) and is furnished with pieces collected over time, some as old as the cottage, as also books and treasures (fossils among them) which the cottage’s earlier occupants collected.
At Lyme too, Maria’s parents prefer to stay quietly indoors much of the time so while there are walks and visits to the beach, they are happier when they don’t have to take them. Maria thus is left to entertain herself, which she does, collecting fossils from the beach and using the books in the house (and at the library) to identify and label them, spending hours in the lovely old Ilex tree in the garden, and having imaginary conversations with the cat who always ‘replies’ sarcastically, and voices Maria’s fears and apprehensions. But alongside, Maria also begins to hear sounds of things that aren’t there—a dog barking and crying, a swing creaking—are these also her imagination or is she a little fey with a connection to the past? Some inscriptions in books in the house, and a visit to their landlady Mrs Shand, on which she sees a sampler from the past made by ‘Harriet’, lead her to wonder about the little girl who lived in the house a hundred years before herself.
Meanwhile, Maria also finds that in the hotel next door are staying a big family—two sets of cousins, the Lucases—whom they had noticed on the drive down. One of the Lucas children is Martin who is about Maria’s age and has some interests in common—fossils and also birds and plants—but in terms of personality is quite the contrast. The two soon become friends, and Maria finds herself opening up more with the Lucas children, joining in games and doing things she didn’t think she would (and also finding that she can make friends). But the mystery from the past still occupies her mind and leads her wonder what Harriet’s story really was?
This was a lovely lovely read. I took to Maria right from the start and could connect with her, particularly her shyness and hesitation in interacting with not only those her age but also older people like Mrs Shand (Maria has so many questions but she dare not ask). I felt for her as well, for Maria has a sensitive nature and also rather profound and interesting thoughts, and quite a lot to her that her parents don’t seem to see or even care about. In fact, more often than not they try to give her treats they ‘think’ she would enjoy or expect her to react as they ‘think’ children should, not really seeing or appreciating her for what she is. I really enjoyed reading Maria’s thoughts and questions—about nature, time, the changes people go through (whether in Darwinian evolution or simply growing up), and indeed in the past (Her Uncle David at least seems to appreciate her interest in the past when he likes the calendar with old pictures she buys with the money he gives her while her parents are plain puzzled). I also loved her conversations with the house cat (who doesn’t seem to have a name), and for a moment at the beginning even wondered whether it was indeed going to turn out to be a talking cat, but of course we know soon enough that it isn’t.
Maria collecting fossils on the beach, especially since it was Lyme, had me thinking of Mary Anning who must have done the same over a century before her on those very same beaches. Once Maria meets and befriends Martin, this becomes far more interesting for Martin knows quite a bit about birds and plants, and soon they are able to share knowledge and explore the place together. Maria also finally has someone who understands her interests a little better. But it isn’t just the natural wonders that they enjoy. Maria is invited to join the Lucases on their outings, going among other places, to a historical themed August Fayre with jousting and such, and also a picnic towards the end just before all the families return home and to their ordinary lives. With them she begins to realise also that making friends and ordinary, ‘noisy’ fun is not so bad, and is in fact, something that she actually enjoys.
But we also have the mystery from the past—even if not exactly a ghost story, Maria does seem to have a connect with the little girl who lived in the house a hundred years ago, and the sounds she hears in fact do turn out to have an explanation, but somewhat different from what Maria (and indeed us readers) think it will turn out to be.
This was a wonderful read for me and a book I see myself coming back to more than once.
The wonderful A Stitch in Time was my third and final pick for the #1976Club hosted by Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings (https://www.stuckinabook.com/1976-clu...) and Simon at Stuck in a Book (https://www.stuckinabook.com/1976-clu...).
At Lyme too, Maria’s parents prefer to stay quietly indoors much of the time so while there are walks and visits to the beach, they are happier when they don’t have to take them. Maria thus is left to entertain herself, which she does, collecting fossils from the beach and using the books in the house (and at the library) to identify and label them, spending hours in the lovely old Ilex tree in the garden, and having imaginary conversations with the cat who always ‘replies’ sarcastically, and voices Maria’s fears and apprehensions. But alongside, Maria also begins to hear sounds of things that aren’t there—a dog barking and crying, a swing creaking—are these also her imagination or is she a little fey with a connection to the past? Some inscriptions in books in the house, and a visit to their landlady Mrs Shand, on which she sees a sampler from the past made by ‘Harriet’, lead her to wonder about the little girl who lived in the house a hundred years before herself.
Meanwhile, Maria also finds that in the hotel next door are staying a big family—two sets of cousins, the Lucases—whom they had noticed on the drive down. One of the Lucas children is Martin who is about Maria’s age and has some interests in common—fossils and also birds and plants—but in terms of personality is quite the contrast. The two soon become friends, and Maria finds herself opening up more with the Lucas children, joining in games and doing things she didn’t think she would (and also finding that she can make friends). But the mystery from the past still occupies her mind and leads her wonder what Harriet’s story really was?
This was a lovely lovely read. I took to Maria right from the start and could connect with her, particularly her shyness and hesitation in interacting with not only those her age but also older people like Mrs Shand (Maria has so many questions but she dare not ask). I felt for her as well, for Maria has a sensitive nature and also rather profound and interesting thoughts, and quite a lot to her that her parents don’t seem to see or even care about. In fact, more often than not they try to give her treats they ‘think’ she would enjoy or expect her to react as they ‘think’ children should, not really seeing or appreciating her for what she is. I really enjoyed reading Maria’s thoughts and questions—about nature, time, the changes people go through (whether in Darwinian evolution or simply growing up), and indeed in the past (Her Uncle David at least seems to appreciate her interest in the past when he likes the calendar with old pictures she buys with the money he gives her while her parents are plain puzzled). I also loved her conversations with the house cat (who doesn’t seem to have a name), and for a moment at the beginning even wondered whether it was indeed going to turn out to be a talking cat, but of course we know soon enough that it isn’t.
Maria collecting fossils on the beach, especially since it was Lyme, had me thinking of Mary Anning who must have done the same over a century before her on those very same beaches. Once Maria meets and befriends Martin, this becomes far more interesting for Martin knows quite a bit about birds and plants, and soon they are able to share knowledge and explore the place together. Maria also finally has someone who understands her interests a little better. But it isn’t just the natural wonders that they enjoy. Maria is invited to join the Lucases on their outings, going among other places, to a historical themed August Fayre with jousting and such, and also a picnic towards the end just before all the families return home and to their ordinary lives. With them she begins to realise also that making friends and ordinary, ‘noisy’ fun is not so bad, and is in fact, something that she actually enjoys.
But we also have the mystery from the past—even if not exactly a ghost story, Maria does seem to have a connect with the little girl who lived in the house a hundred years ago, and the sounds she hears in fact do turn out to have an explanation, but somewhat different from what Maria (and indeed us readers) think it will turn out to be.
This was a wonderful read for me and a book I see myself coming back to more than once.
The wonderful A Stitch in Time was my third and final pick for the #1976Club hosted by Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings (https://www.stuckinabook.com/1976-clu...) and Simon at Stuck in a Book (https://www.stuckinabook.com/1976-clu...).
October 9, 2024
It took us way longer than it should have to finish this book. We got it from the Buckinghamshire Library as an ebook and were reading it to fulfill a challenge on Habitica. We didn't finish it by the end of April as we should have, but we just kept renewing it and plugging away. Then it was due and there was no more option to renew! Not because someone else wanted to read it, but because it had been removed from the catalogue! I couldn't believe it! So I requested it be purchased by the library (at least I assume I did), because it magically reappeared a couple of weeks ago and today we finished reading it!
ANYHOO, I really enjoyed the book. I'm not sure my son loved it, but I made him suffer through, because it was really well written (lots of new vocabulary!) and the MC, Maria was quirky and talked to animals and inanimate objects whenever she felt like it, but had trouble making friends usually. She and her family went off to Devon for their summer vacation/holidays and rented an old house and there was a large, noisy family living in the hotel next door. Maria met and hit it off with the 11 year old boy (her age) next door. They both enjoyed looking at and for fossils which are in abundance on the coast near Lyme Regis where they were. Maria's imagination would run off with her so much so that she would hear things that no one else would hear (like the cat saying snide things), but that and seeing a sampler (hence the title) made, but not finished, by a girl her age more than 100 years ago. And here there may be spoilers: Maria would find herself being transported to the 1860's experiencing life from the other little girl's perspective.
But that is where the time travel ends and even though it's not always explained away as simply Maria's over-active imagination, that's basically what it was. The moments of time travel were so fleeting as to be more surreal than anything but the mysterious sounds she would hear were never really explained. There was a great tension and foreboding that to everyone's (mine and Maria's at least) relief never amounted to anything. I kept waiting for something more than magical realism and imagination, but oh well. It was a lovely book despite that.
ANYHOO, I really enjoyed the book. I'm not sure my son loved it, but I made him suffer through, because it was really well written (lots of new vocabulary!) and the MC, Maria was quirky and talked to animals and inanimate objects whenever she felt like it, but had trouble making friends usually. She and her family went off to Devon for their summer vacation/holidays and rented an old house and there was a large, noisy family living in the hotel next door. Maria met and hit it off with the 11 year old boy (her age) next door. They both enjoyed looking at and for fossils which are in abundance on the coast near Lyme Regis where they were. Maria's imagination would run off with her so much so that she would hear things that no one else would hear (like the cat saying snide things), but that and seeing a sampler (hence the title) made, but not finished, by a girl her age more than 100 years ago. And here there may be spoilers: Maria would find herself being transported to the 1860's experiencing life from the other little girl's perspective.
But that is where the time travel ends and even though it's not always explained away as simply Maria's over-active imagination, that's basically what it was. The moments of time travel were so fleeting as to be more surreal than anything but the mysterious sounds she would hear were never really explained. There was a great tension and foreboding that to everyone's (mine and Maria's at least) relief never amounted to anything. I kept waiting for something more than magical realism and imagination, but oh well. It was a lovely book despite that.
April 8, 2015
Though I haven’t yet read it Penelope Lively’s 2013 memoir, Ammonites and Leaping Fish: a Life in Time, picks up some up the themes that permeate her 1976 Whitbread Children’s Book Award winner: growing old, books, her cat, ammonites of course, all what has been described as “her identifying cargo of possessions”. Ostensibly a ghost story this is more about what it’s like to be a solitary bookish child on the cusp of maturity, all told with sensitivity and poetry, so much so that it’s hard not to read aspects of her own childhood into this book. Her parents took what has been called “a rather inactive role” in the author’s life during her upbringing in pre-war Egypt; she describes it as “a childhood with enormous opportunities for solitude and imagination,” during which she spent “long hours just playing alone, building elaborate stories in my mind around my toy animals.”
In A Stitch in Time Maria Foster is an only child taken in the summer of 1975 for a four week holiday to Lyme Regis; Mr and Mrs Foster have rented from a local resident, Mrs Shand, an old Victorian house which they discover is filled with furniture and artefacts accumulated over a hundred years. Maria is prone, much as the young Penelope Low did in Egypt, to having conversations with objects and animals in lieu of friends and siblings, which her rather distant parents construe as mumblings. But Maria is also an unusual auditory sensitive who hears sounds no one else hears; these noises include the squeak of a swing in the garden, the playing of the piano and the barking of a dog. She finds she develops an interest in fossils, a fascination she shares with Martin Lucas, whose noisy extended family are staying in the hotel next door; together they search Lyme’s beach for ammonites, the sea urchin Stomechinus bigranularis and Mesozoic oyster Gryphaea. But all the while Maria is becoming obsessed with one time inhabitants of their holiday home, Victorian sisters Susan and Harriet. In particular, what happened to Harriet? Is the answer in the landscape around Lyme — the fossils, the geology, the underlying morphology of the cliffs? And why can only she hear echoes of the past in her ammonite-shaped cochleae?
A Stitch in Time is a beautifully written novel. Every few pages includes poetic passages evoking a feeling, a scene, a landscape: for example, a lovely day was better than one with a boring blue sky “because the sky was pleasantly busy with clouds, huge shining heaps of cloud that roamed across the horizon, ebbed and flowed, formed and reformed as you watched them… Everything would go grey and muted, as the sun went in, and there would be this band of golden colour sweeping along the cliffs to Weymouth, lighting up now a bright slice of rock, now a green field, now the white sparkle of a house, now the turquoise of the sea itself.”
But it’s not just descriptions that ensured the accolade of a Whitbread Award; Maria herself is a believable character, a sensitive child who tries to piece together scraps of disparate evidence without asking questions that might make her seem stupid, the way that real children do. She’s also a very likeable individual, kind and thoughtful even if a bit of an enigma to the adults around her.
How does Lively weave a story around Maria? Like any good author she includes a number of vibrantly coloured strands. Principally there is the recurrent image of the ammonite, a fossil plentiful in the rocks around Lyme; here is a natural spiral which could have suggested a tale of parallel lives separated by a hundred and ten years — though of course the match can never be exact. There are also the parallel lives of author and fictional character, though unlike Maria in the story the young Penelope was not to make real friends at boarding school in England, having to wait until she went to Oxford.
And, speaking of strands, the ‘stitch in time’ of the title refers to a sampler that Maria comes across, a sampler that Maria’s Victorian counterpart Harriet had worked on and that her sister Susan completed. Other elements show up, scraps of odd material that somehow get drawn into the story. The dog that barks in Maria’s hearing which no one else is aware of? Perhaps Lively picked up on the legend of the Black Dog of Lyme: and though her black dog only shares a colour, not a backstory, with the local tale, it does function as an omen — just what it presages is not clear till the very end. And being set in Lyme Regis, one cannot not think of The French Lieutenant’s Women (1969) with its three optional endings; perhaps Lively is subtly referencing Fowles’ earlier novel by suggesting one ending while delivering a different conclusion.
This is the first novel by the author that I’ve read since the seventies, from her other children’s books The Whispering Knights (1971) and The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy (1971) to her Treasures of Time (1979) written for an adult audience, and it’s made me keen to read more of her work. I also wanted to compare it with two other similarly-titled time-related novels, the semi-autobiographical A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley and the science fantasy A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. The fact is, while it includes some autobiography, some science and of course some fantasy, it mixes these elements in very different and individual ways. And it was such a delight to read — certainly one to read again.
In A Stitch in Time Maria Foster is an only child taken in the summer of 1975 for a four week holiday to Lyme Regis; Mr and Mrs Foster have rented from a local resident, Mrs Shand, an old Victorian house which they discover is filled with furniture and artefacts accumulated over a hundred years. Maria is prone, much as the young Penelope Low did in Egypt, to having conversations with objects and animals in lieu of friends and siblings, which her rather distant parents construe as mumblings. But Maria is also an unusual auditory sensitive who hears sounds no one else hears; these noises include the squeak of a swing in the garden, the playing of the piano and the barking of a dog. She finds she develops an interest in fossils, a fascination she shares with Martin Lucas, whose noisy extended family are staying in the hotel next door; together they search Lyme’s beach for ammonites, the sea urchin Stomechinus bigranularis and Mesozoic oyster Gryphaea. But all the while Maria is becoming obsessed with one time inhabitants of their holiday home, Victorian sisters Susan and Harriet. In particular, what happened to Harriet? Is the answer in the landscape around Lyme — the fossils, the geology, the underlying morphology of the cliffs? And why can only she hear echoes of the past in her ammonite-shaped cochleae?
A Stitch in Time is a beautifully written novel. Every few pages includes poetic passages evoking a feeling, a scene, a landscape: for example, a lovely day was better than one with a boring blue sky “because the sky was pleasantly busy with clouds, huge shining heaps of cloud that roamed across the horizon, ebbed and flowed, formed and reformed as you watched them… Everything would go grey and muted, as the sun went in, and there would be this band of golden colour sweeping along the cliffs to Weymouth, lighting up now a bright slice of rock, now a green field, now the white sparkle of a house, now the turquoise of the sea itself.”
But it’s not just descriptions that ensured the accolade of a Whitbread Award; Maria herself is a believable character, a sensitive child who tries to piece together scraps of disparate evidence without asking questions that might make her seem stupid, the way that real children do. She’s also a very likeable individual, kind and thoughtful even if a bit of an enigma to the adults around her.
How does Lively weave a story around Maria? Like any good author she includes a number of vibrantly coloured strands. Principally there is the recurrent image of the ammonite, a fossil plentiful in the rocks around Lyme; here is a natural spiral which could have suggested a tale of parallel lives separated by a hundred and ten years — though of course the match can never be exact. There are also the parallel lives of author and fictional character, though unlike Maria in the story the young Penelope was not to make real friends at boarding school in England, having to wait until she went to Oxford.
And, speaking of strands, the ‘stitch in time’ of the title refers to a sampler that Maria comes across, a sampler that Maria’s Victorian counterpart Harriet had worked on and that her sister Susan completed. Other elements show up, scraps of odd material that somehow get drawn into the story. The dog that barks in Maria’s hearing which no one else is aware of? Perhaps Lively picked up on the legend of the Black Dog of Lyme: and though her black dog only shares a colour, not a backstory, with the local tale, it does function as an omen — just what it presages is not clear till the very end. And being set in Lyme Regis, one cannot not think of The French Lieutenant’s Women (1969) with its three optional endings; perhaps Lively is subtly referencing Fowles’ earlier novel by suggesting one ending while delivering a different conclusion.
This is the first novel by the author that I’ve read since the seventies, from her other children’s books The Whispering Knights (1971) and The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy (1971) to her Treasures of Time (1979) written for an adult audience, and it’s made me keen to read more of her work. I also wanted to compare it with two other similarly-titled time-related novels, the semi-autobiographical A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley and the science fantasy A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. The fact is, while it includes some autobiography, some science and of course some fantasy, it mixes these elements in very different and individual ways. And it was such a delight to read — certainly one to read again.
January 17, 2023
2023 - 1970’s Immersion Reading Challenge
A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively (1976; 2016 ed.) 221 pages.
NOT ON THE ACCELERATED READING (AR) LIST!
Eleven-year-old Maria Foster is a little bit intuitive and can see and feel things at times…spiritually. A stitch in time refers to a one hundred year old 1865 sampler that was started by a 10-year-old girl named, Harriet, but for some unknown reason, finished by Harriet’s older sister. It depicted the house Maria Foster and her family were currently vacationing in on the coast at Lyme Regis, three hours from their home in London. It also had a swing and the ilet tree that Maria sits in every day to think about things. This sampler helps to reaffirm some of the things she felt, like the sound of a creaking swing when they first arrived, which she found later on in the story. Or, the little dog that was barking, which had died a hundred years earlier in one of the landslides. But, it did not confirm the death of Harriet, as she believed in her heart.
Although, I found the story itself to be extremely slow, I thought the author had pretty good character development in Maria. Being an only child, a bit reclusive and lonely, and being a bit intuitive, she was like an old soul in a child’s body. This I can relate to, although I’m not an only child. I am the middle child. I’m so reflective on the past, that, at times, I do forget to laugh and just have fun in life, just like Maria. And like Maria, I was, and sometimes still am, misunderstood in the way I think and the things I say and the things I do.
NOW, FOR MY RANT ABOUT ATHEISM PRESENTED IN THIS STORY
Why did the author have to go there? To trash the Bible and God’s Word? This was a great little story, which would have been perfectly fine without putting her two cents in discrediting God and His Words. I was instantly pissed and it did sway my review of the book. If you are a Christian, you might reconsider allowing your young child, with their impressionable minds, to read this.
P. 88: “Noah’s Ark isn’t true at all,” said Maria, with sudden illumination. “Course not,” said Martin. “It’s all a load of rubbish.”
Maria then makes a comment about how it seemed someone was playing around with things, as time went on, just to see what would work and what wouldn’t. Martin called it evolution, something they learned in school. He said things changed to adapt to their environment. They don’t just die off. (p. 89)
I wish the author would have left out this section altogether because now I have to put my two cents in regarding this children’s book.
The Bible makes it clear, that God created things to reproduce after their own kind. In Genesis 1:
11 The God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: see-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according tot heir kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 The God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them run over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created hm; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase n number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
I don’t believe in evolution at all. You either believe in God, or you don’t. That’s what it boils down to.
There may be slight changes from one earlier animal to the exact same kind of animal today…but they are still the same animal. Changes in environment can change DNA, or even breeding can change DNA, but never a change to a different species. Plants and trees can be propagated to grow several types of fruit on a tree, or pollenated to grow desired different traits or to get rid of weak traits. The truth is scientists have never, ever found, or proven, an instance where one animal is now a different animal, or one plant is now a different plant, or one fruit is now a different fruit. Humans were never once fish or apes. Show me! Never proven! There…rant over, and sorry I had to go there!
A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively (1976; 2016 ed.) 221 pages.
NOT ON THE ACCELERATED READING (AR) LIST!
Eleven-year-old Maria Foster is a little bit intuitive and can see and feel things at times…spiritually. A stitch in time refers to a one hundred year old 1865 sampler that was started by a 10-year-old girl named, Harriet, but for some unknown reason, finished by Harriet’s older sister. It depicted the house Maria Foster and her family were currently vacationing in on the coast at Lyme Regis, three hours from their home in London. It also had a swing and the ilet tree that Maria sits in every day to think about things. This sampler helps to reaffirm some of the things she felt, like the sound of a creaking swing when they first arrived, which she found later on in the story. Or, the little dog that was barking, which had died a hundred years earlier in one of the landslides. But, it did not confirm the death of Harriet, as she believed in her heart.
Although, I found the story itself to be extremely slow, I thought the author had pretty good character development in Maria. Being an only child, a bit reclusive and lonely, and being a bit intuitive, she was like an old soul in a child’s body. This I can relate to, although I’m not an only child. I am the middle child. I’m so reflective on the past, that, at times, I do forget to laugh and just have fun in life, just like Maria. And like Maria, I was, and sometimes still am, misunderstood in the way I think and the things I say and the things I do.
NOW, FOR MY RANT ABOUT ATHEISM PRESENTED IN THIS STORY
Why did the author have to go there? To trash the Bible and God’s Word? This was a great little story, which would have been perfectly fine without putting her two cents in discrediting God and His Words. I was instantly pissed and it did sway my review of the book. If you are a Christian, you might reconsider allowing your young child, with their impressionable minds, to read this.
P. 88: “Noah’s Ark isn’t true at all,” said Maria, with sudden illumination. “Course not,” said Martin. “It’s all a load of rubbish.”
Maria then makes a comment about how it seemed someone was playing around with things, as time went on, just to see what would work and what wouldn’t. Martin called it evolution, something they learned in school. He said things changed to adapt to their environment. They don’t just die off. (p. 89)
I wish the author would have left out this section altogether because now I have to put my two cents in regarding this children’s book.
The Bible makes it clear, that God created things to reproduce after their own kind. In Genesis 1:
11 The God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: see-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according tot heir kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 The God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them run over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created hm; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase n number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
I don’t believe in evolution at all. You either believe in God, or you don’t. That’s what it boils down to.
There may be slight changes from one earlier animal to the exact same kind of animal today…but they are still the same animal. Changes in environment can change DNA, or even breeding can change DNA, but never a change to a different species. Plants and trees can be propagated to grow several types of fruit on a tree, or pollenated to grow desired different traits or to get rid of weak traits. The truth is scientists have never, ever found, or proven, an instance where one animal is now a different animal, or one plant is now a different plant, or one fruit is now a different fruit. Humans were never once fish or apes. Show me! Never proven! There…rant over, and sorry I had to go there!
March 25, 2017
A lovely little book for middle readers that I probably would have loved at that age, about a girl spending the summer with her parents at the seaside in England. She befriends a boy about her age and they spend a lot of time in the beach finding fossils.
I was a little disappointed because I thought this was a time travel book, à la Charlotte Sometimes. Nope. Instead, it was just a nice story about an imaginative girl who has a few auditory hallucinations that seem to reveal moments from the past to her. No time travel, more like clairvoyance without a specific purpose.
So, not the book I was hoping for, but still a sweet little read.
I was a little disappointed because I thought this was a time travel book, à la Charlotte Sometimes. Nope. Instead, it was just a nice story about an imaginative girl who has a few auditory hallucinations that seem to reveal moments from the past to her. No time travel, more like clairvoyance without a specific purpose.
So, not the book I was hoping for, but still a sweet little read.
September 12, 2012
I loved this book. It was charming, imaginative, and written in a way that was fun for me as an adult. The Lyme Regis setting, with its history of fossil hunting, reminded me a bit of Tracy Chevalier's "Remarkable Creatures," which I also enjoyed. I'm a fan of Lively's adult books. I think I liked this even more than her adult books! Sian Phillips does a wonderful job of narrating the audiobook. Highly recommended.
sony-or-android
June 19, 2020I wonder why the resurgence of interest in this old book? And I wonder why it's not on my shelves somewhere, even as 'not found' or 'dnf' or something....
November 22, 2019
Un piccolo gioiellino per ragazzi che ho letto in previsione di una visita a Lyme Regis quest'estate.
Non avevo mai letto nulla di Penelope Lively, ma la sua scrittura è davvero magica.
E poi mi sono innamorata di Maria, una ragazzina piena di sensibilità e intelligenza - sola, perché figlia unica e molto riservata - che parla con personaggi immaginari, come animali, o anche esseri inanimati (la pompa di benzina?), e di grandissima curiosità. Maria, nell'estate del 1976, scopre una passione per le scienze, ma soprattutto per i fossili, grazie al luogo in cui va a trascorrere le vacanze, Lyme Regis, nel Dorset, là dove nell'800 Mary Annings scoprì scheletri giurassici.
Maria non si interessa a Mary Anning, però, ma a un'altra bambina, Harriet, che vede in una foto a casa della padrona di casa del villino che lei e i genitori hanno affittato; su di lei la bambina costruisce una storia quando si rende conto che non ha mai portato a termine l'imparaticcio che è appeso in casa della signora Shand, un imparaticcio molto particolare, con un cane, un leccio e tanti fossili.
La casa della signora Shand è molto bizzarra anche perché contiene una collezione di orologi di suo nonno, che segnano ciascuno un'ora diversa, perché si sono fermati e sono stati poi ricaricati a caso. Maria ha delle sue teorie sulle persone (pirandelliane, addirittura) e sul rapporto che c'è tra orologi e tempo.
«Perché hai cacciato via il gatto?»
«È antipatico» disse Maria.
«Ma niente affatto. È tutta la mattina che mi si strofina sulle gambe facendo le fusa.»
Si sarà mai resa conto, si domandò Maria fra sé, che le persone possono essere molto diverse a seconda della compagnia in cui si trovano? Anche gli animali, presumibilmente. Per esempio, a scuola la professoressa Hayward non la smette mai di sorridere quando ci sono i genitori, mette in mostra una sfilza di denti, ma quando è di nuovo sola con i ragazzi fa una faccia lunga lunga e sottile, e non si vede neppure un dente, e le cambia anche la voce, diventa più sbrigativa e contrariata...
E le venne in mente, voltandosi per entrare in casa, che i luoghi sono come gli orologi. Hanno dentro di sé tutto il tempo mai esistito, tutte le cose mai successe. Vanno avanti, sempre, con le cose accadute nascoste dentro, e le puoi trovare, come si trovano i fossili spaccando la roccia.
E Lyme Regis e la costa del Dorset sono luoghi unici in cui ci si rebnde conto del trascorrere del tempo, perché ciò che sembra immutabile, in realtà ha subito migliaia di trasformazioni, e poi è rimasto incastonato nella roccia e si è fossilizzato per poi essere ritrovato da una bambina tantissimi anni dopo.
Raggiunto il marciapiede opposto, si fermò a osservare la casa. Dietro, oltre, il mare sembrava un fondale grigio spruzzato di bianco, come doveva essere anche quando era stata costruita. Quello non sarebbe mai cambiato, quello e la forma della costa che si estendeva a destra e a sinistra. E lei, Maria, lo stava osservando una sera di agosto, proprio come doveva aver fatto la ragazzina che aveva ricamato l’imparaticcio – come si chiamava? Harriet – una volta, tanto tempo prima. Harriet è come le ammoniti nella roccia, pensò, non è più qui eppure lo è, evanescente, attraverso le cose che ha lasciato. L’imparaticcio e i disegni sul libro.
Non avevo mai letto nulla di Penelope Lively, ma la sua scrittura è davvero magica.
E poi mi sono innamorata di Maria, una ragazzina piena di sensibilità e intelligenza - sola, perché figlia unica e molto riservata - che parla con personaggi immaginari, come animali, o anche esseri inanimati (la pompa di benzina?), e di grandissima curiosità. Maria, nell'estate del 1976, scopre una passione per le scienze, ma soprattutto per i fossili, grazie al luogo in cui va a trascorrere le vacanze, Lyme Regis, nel Dorset, là dove nell'800 Mary Annings scoprì scheletri giurassici.
Maria non si interessa a Mary Anning, però, ma a un'altra bambina, Harriet, che vede in una foto a casa della padrona di casa del villino che lei e i genitori hanno affittato; su di lei la bambina costruisce una storia quando si rende conto che non ha mai portato a termine l'imparaticcio che è appeso in casa della signora Shand, un imparaticcio molto particolare, con un cane, un leccio e tanti fossili.
La casa della signora Shand è molto bizzarra anche perché contiene una collezione di orologi di suo nonno, che segnano ciascuno un'ora diversa, perché si sono fermati e sono stati poi ricaricati a caso. Maria ha delle sue teorie sulle persone (pirandelliane, addirittura) e sul rapporto che c'è tra orologi e tempo.
«Perché hai cacciato via il gatto?»
«È antipatico» disse Maria.
«Ma niente affatto. È tutta la mattina che mi si strofina sulle gambe facendo le fusa.»
Si sarà mai resa conto, si domandò Maria fra sé, che le persone possono essere molto diverse a seconda della compagnia in cui si trovano? Anche gli animali, presumibilmente. Per esempio, a scuola la professoressa Hayward non la smette mai di sorridere quando ci sono i genitori, mette in mostra una sfilza di denti, ma quando è di nuovo sola con i ragazzi fa una faccia lunga lunga e sottile, e non si vede neppure un dente, e le cambia anche la voce, diventa più sbrigativa e contrariata...
E le venne in mente, voltandosi per entrare in casa, che i luoghi sono come gli orologi. Hanno dentro di sé tutto il tempo mai esistito, tutte le cose mai successe. Vanno avanti, sempre, con le cose accadute nascoste dentro, e le puoi trovare, come si trovano i fossili spaccando la roccia.
E Lyme Regis e la costa del Dorset sono luoghi unici in cui ci si rebnde conto del trascorrere del tempo, perché ciò che sembra immutabile, in realtà ha subito migliaia di trasformazioni, e poi è rimasto incastonato nella roccia e si è fossilizzato per poi essere ritrovato da una bambina tantissimi anni dopo.
Raggiunto il marciapiede opposto, si fermò a osservare la casa. Dietro, oltre, il mare sembrava un fondale grigio spruzzato di bianco, come doveva essere anche quando era stata costruita. Quello non sarebbe mai cambiato, quello e la forma della costa che si estendeva a destra e a sinistra. E lei, Maria, lo stava osservando una sera di agosto, proprio come doveva aver fatto la ragazzina che aveva ricamato l’imparaticcio – come si chiamava? Harriet – una volta, tanto tempo prima. Harriet è come le ammoniti nella roccia, pensò, non è più qui eppure lo è, evanescente, attraverso le cose che ha lasciato. L’imparaticcio e i disegni sul libro.
January 9, 2023
A delightful, well described children’s novel about eleven year old Maria and her imagination. Maria and her family are on a holiday by the sea. Maria starts hearing noises no one else hears. A dog barking, a children’s swing squeaking. As the story progresses Maria learns about the history of the house her family is staying in. She learns that a tragedy occurred years ago, with part of the cliff nearby collapsing.
This book was the winner of the 1996 Whitbread Children’s book award.
This book was the winner of the 1996 Whitbread Children’s book award.
July 17, 2021
It pains me in my soul to say this, but I did not like this book very much. Although Wikipedia has informed me that my new hero Penelope Lively began life as a children’s author and still writes for both children and adults, this book is a weird hybrid that fits neither one nor the other category. (Given it was written in 1976, it is very much a children’s book, not YA or NA or whatever new two letters is being invented as I type.) I’ll say this for it: it’s weird as shit and probably wouldn’t have been published now, let alone won a Whitbread Award, but it might have carved a nice niche in literary fiction if Maria was aged up.
As it is, it’s a very slow and thoughtful inspection of the inner life of a pre-pubertal girl, who’s growing out of her magical thinking childhood phase, during one summer in a holiday house that isn't as eldritch as Maria makes out. I’ve had this on my bookshelf since I was a child (it’s why I thought I owned the similarly named ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ – this is, at least, not as bad as ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ to the adult reader). At some point I must have tried to read it. I retain a vague memory of being put off by how plodding it was, as well as by the tiny tiny font. This 1994 Mammoth edition has what looks like size 6 font and squashes the book into 140 pages. I don’t know much about the conventions of children’s publishing, but I’m really starting to suspect that pre-JK Rowling there was a rabidly-enforced limit on page counts.
Where Lively is best – unsurprisingly – is describing, in the margins, the lives of the quiet, introverted Foster parents, who were ambivalent to the prospect of child-rearing until they had one and clearly still are. The denouement, which gestures at a supernatural deus ex machina and then shies away from it, is weak. If the story was supposed to be about Maria and her mother learning to understand each other better, it probably should have been about that.
There is some good writing here, of course.
“There are some supremely agreeable moments in life that are best savoured alone – the first barefoot step into a cold sea, the reading of certain books, the revelation that it has snowed in the night, waking on one’s birthday … And other the full wonder of which can only be achieved if someone else is there to observe.”
“ ‘If you feel sick in the car, tell Mrs Lucas.’
No, thought Maria. In front of them all? Do you really think I would? Die, quietly, just like that, is what you’d have to do.”’
“ ‘Super nosh … Once,’ he began reflectively, ‘we roasted an ox on Wandsworth Common. Well, not really an ox – a leg of lamb from Sainsbury’s but it was the same idea. That was the time James got his head stuck between those iron railings.’ Mr Foster picked up the newspaper and retreated into the drawing room.”
I think I’ll probably read through all of Lively’s adult backlist before I attempt another of her works for children, all the same.
As it is, it’s a very slow and thoughtful inspection of the inner life of a pre-pubertal girl, who’s growing out of her magical thinking childhood phase, during one summer in a holiday house that isn't as eldritch as Maria makes out. I’ve had this on my bookshelf since I was a child (it’s why I thought I owned the similarly named ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ – this is, at least, not as bad as ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ to the adult reader). At some point I must have tried to read it. I retain a vague memory of being put off by how plodding it was, as well as by the tiny tiny font. This 1994 Mammoth edition has what looks like size 6 font and squashes the book into 140 pages. I don’t know much about the conventions of children’s publishing, but I’m really starting to suspect that pre-JK Rowling there was a rabidly-enforced limit on page counts.
Where Lively is best – unsurprisingly – is describing, in the margins, the lives of the quiet, introverted Foster parents, who were ambivalent to the prospect of child-rearing until they had one and clearly still are. The denouement, which gestures at a supernatural deus ex machina and then shies away from it, is weak. If the story was supposed to be about Maria and her mother learning to understand each other better, it probably should have been about that.
There is some good writing here, of course.
“There are some supremely agreeable moments in life that are best savoured alone – the first barefoot step into a cold sea, the reading of certain books, the revelation that it has snowed in the night, waking on one’s birthday … And other the full wonder of which can only be achieved if someone else is there to observe.”
“ ‘If you feel sick in the car, tell Mrs Lucas.’
No, thought Maria. In front of them all? Do you really think I would? Die, quietly, just like that, is what you’d have to do.”’
“ ‘Super nosh … Once,’ he began reflectively, ‘we roasted an ox on Wandsworth Common. Well, not really an ox – a leg of lamb from Sainsbury’s but it was the same idea. That was the time James got his head stuck between those iron railings.’ Mr Foster picked up the newspaper and retreated into the drawing room.”
I think I’ll probably read through all of Lively’s adult backlist before I attempt another of her works for children, all the same.
July 24, 2022
"And she looked back through the other pages of the calendar, and thought as she did so of her own January (when she had had chickenpox) and March (her birthday...) and June (containing her first train journey alone, to visit her godmother). Those months seemed like the filled and labelled jam-jars in the larder at home: the rest, September and October... stood empty and unpredictable."
This book is not a time-slip novel like I anticipated, yes there are moments with echoes of the past, which culminate near the end, but it's not the same as The Children Of Green Knowe which I recently read (and loved). This is story about class the movement of time and concept of age and aging.
One good thing about this book is it was written in the 70s and if you are teaching students about that period in history, there are some interesting things here, such as 20p pocket money being enough to purchase a multitude of things, parents being known by their last names e.g. Mr & Mrs Foster, and BBQs referred to as picnics. It did make me laugh though how the visiting neighbour Martin is presented as a lower class child with less etiquette and compared to children now, he's fairly posh, I would say!
One disappointing thing about the book is how slow it is at times, but what it lacks in pace in parts it makes up for in memorable moments, like when Maria sees a catastrophic accident almost happen and how impactful that is for her to know that, "it nearly ended up as quite a different sort of day."
I also enjoyed the ending when all the echoes of time were beginning to come together (though Maria is very melodramatic!)
Also the nature references to the fossils, trees and lichen etc. we're lovely. Again, very useful as a class read as you could bring fossils in for students to view and label so they are connected with the world and understand the links to the past and the importance of this, just as Maria learns in the book.
Overall, it's not my favourite read (perhaps because I was expected a different, more ghostly, tone to the book), but I'm glad I read it and I can see a lot of use for this book as a class read, or for young people to stumble across themselves and become philosophical about their place in the world and time itself.
This book is not a time-slip novel like I anticipated, yes there are moments with echoes of the past, which culminate near the end, but it's not the same as The Children Of Green Knowe which I recently read (and loved). This is story about class the movement of time and concept of age and aging.
One good thing about this book is it was written in the 70s and if you are teaching students about that period in history, there are some interesting things here, such as 20p pocket money being enough to purchase a multitude of things, parents being known by their last names e.g. Mr & Mrs Foster, and BBQs referred to as picnics. It did make me laugh though how the visiting neighbour Martin is presented as a lower class child with less etiquette and compared to children now, he's fairly posh, I would say!
One disappointing thing about the book is how slow it is at times, but what it lacks in pace in parts it makes up for in memorable moments, like when Maria sees a catastrophic accident almost happen and how impactful that is for her to know that, "it nearly ended up as quite a different sort of day."
I also enjoyed the ending when all the echoes of time were beginning to come together (though Maria is very melodramatic!)
Also the nature references to the fossils, trees and lichen etc. we're lovely. Again, very useful as a class read as you could bring fossils in for students to view and label so they are connected with the world and understand the links to the past and the importance of this, just as Maria learns in the book.
Overall, it's not my favourite read (perhaps because I was expected a different, more ghostly, tone to the book), but I'm glad I read it and I can see a lot of use for this book as a class read, or for young people to stumble across themselves and become philosophical about their place in the world and time itself.
September 29, 2021
A delightful tale of a little girl and a memorable summer holiday at the seaside. Eleven-year old Maria is the only child of a staid couple, who live entirely predictable lives and go on the sort of holidays, which everyone else does. They are busy with their own humdrum existence, and Maria, deprived of company turns to animals, the furniture, the walls- anything at all around her to carry on imaginary conversations. This summer, they come down to Dorset and move into a rented Victorian villa, close to the beach. Just next door stands a hotel, and Maria soon spots a large, rumbunctious family of children, in fact two families of cousins, and slowly befriends the eldest boy Martin, who is just about her own age. Exposed for the very first time to a noisy, friendly, untidy and totally haphazard existence, she begins to enjoy it, but with reservations. Meanwhile, her imaginary world grows stronger. She holds long, and often sarcastic conversations on the part of her new friend, the house cat, and often wakes up to the sound of barking, and the creak of a swing. In the morning, however, there is no swing in their garden or next door, and neither is there a dog around. Her favorite spot is the massive Ilex tree, and she feels most at home nestled in its broad branches. Exploring the villa, which looks exactly as it must have done in Victorian times, she comes across an old book on fossils, with a page of scribbles with details of some long ago child’s own collection. Martin and she are fascinated by the fossils found in the cliffs around them, and spend many happy hours fossil-hunting, as well as visiting Maria’s stern landlady, who spent her life in the same house, and has now moved across the road to a guesthouse, to admire her grandfather’s collection and see old family photographs. Little by little, the pieces of her imaginary puzzle seem to be coming together, though their holiday is almost at an end. The vivid imagery, the workings of the little girl’s mind and the growing eerie atmosphere make this book an entrancing read.
December 24, 2018
On summer vacation with her family, a girl stumbles into memories of a Victorian girl who once lived at their beach house. This slipping, fuzzy, not-quite-speculative premise could be frustrating, but it isn't; it has a satisfying conclusion, but more importantly it marries perfectly to the book's tone. Lively shows her protagonist profound respect, and fully inhabits her inner landscape: the intense privacy; the fluidity of personal growth and the snapshot moments which build a life. It works well alongside the precise details that evoke the setting and the gentle criticisms innate to the characterization. This is a gentle, unassuming book which renders an immersive PoV.
January 19, 2018
Hayatta öyle anlar vardır ki, tadını en çok tek başınızayken çıkarırdınız: Buz gibi soğuk bir denize çıplak ayağınızı değdirdiğiniz ilk an, bazı kitapları okumak, sabah kalktığınızda her tarafı karla kaplanmış bulmak, insanın doğum günü sabahında uyanması...
Güzel bir yaz günü gıcırtılı bahçe salıncağında sallanırken rüzgarın tatlı esintisini hisseder gibi bu kitabın verdiği his. Genç-Çocuk kitabı olarak kategori edersek kesinlikle başarılı. Farklı ve naif bir hikaye.
Güzel bir yaz günü gıcırtılı bahçe salıncağında sallanırken rüzgarın tatlı esintisini hisseder gibi bu kitabın verdiği his. Genç-Çocuk kitabı olarak kategori edersek kesinlikle başarılı. Farklı ve naif bir hikaye.
March 1, 2017
Beautiful, brilliant book! Couldn't stop highlighting passages! Can't wait to read more Penelope Lively books!
January 5, 2023
In Maria we have an introspective child, used to being alone, who is taken to Lyme Regis for the summer. While her mother and father take her on trips to the beach and museum, it is when Maria is befriended by the family next door that she starts to find out a little more about herself.
From start to finish I was struck by how little actually happens. They certainly seem to have done childrens’ books differently in the 1970s, and though there were some lovely passages and Maria was an interesting character there really was little to talk about.
This was read purely to fulfil the criteria of a book published in your birth year for the PopSugar Challenge. I’m sure I will have read this when I was younger, but I spent most of the book wondering whether anything was actually going to happen.
From start to finish I was struck by how little actually happens. They certainly seem to have done childrens’ books differently in the 1970s, and though there were some lovely passages and Maria was an interesting character there really was little to talk about.
This was read purely to fulfil the criteria of a book published in your birth year for the PopSugar Challenge. I’m sure I will have read this when I was younger, but I spent most of the book wondering whether anything was actually going to happen.
May 26, 2018
An intriguing look at time travel. Maria is a bit of a loner. She likes to talk to animals and objects. A special picture turns her ramblings into something else and Maria is finding out about a different age and time. Good story.
October 2, 2023
I found this ok but not amazing. Did love the talking cat which was my favourite part.
January 2, 2016
I really enjoyed this book even though it is written for children. Maria is an only child and is fond of being on her own so that she can think her own thoughts. She talks to animals and to inanimate objects and is always being told off for muttering to herself. She and her parents travel to Lyme Regis for a summer holiday and stay in a house which hasn't changed much since the Victorian era. Maria can here a swing creaking in the garden even though there isn't one and she gets the feeling that people are still around who used to live in the house.
Maria makes friends with Martin who is staying with his family in the guest house next door and together they explore the beach and collect fossils, pooling their knowledge. Gradually Maria relaxes and enjoys her holiday but she is still aware of noises which other people can't hear.
This is a charming story with enough in it to keep an adult interested which once again goes to show that a good story is a good story for any age group. Many people who were shy as children will be able to relate to many of Maria's feelings and her sense of not really understanding adults and how they think and behave. The book has some interesting things to say about the nature of time and how past present and future are not necessarily a straight line.
Maria makes friends with Martin who is staying with his family in the guest house next door and together they explore the beach and collect fossils, pooling their knowledge. Gradually Maria relaxes and enjoys her holiday but she is still aware of noises which other people can't hear.
This is a charming story with enough in it to keep an adult interested which once again goes to show that a good story is a good story for any age group. Many people who were shy as children will be able to relate to many of Maria's feelings and her sense of not really understanding adults and how they think and behave. The book has some interesting things to say about the nature of time and how past present and future are not necessarily a straight line.
June 17, 2015
Ho trovato questo libro per caso in biblioteca e devo dire che è davvero carino! La protagonista, Maria, è una bambina taciturna e timida, che ha l'abitudine di parlare con animali e oggetti. Ho apprezzato molto alcuni passaggi (tra l'altro, a mio parere, saggi oer una bambina della sua età) e come, alla fine del libro, Maria sia uscita dal suo guscio di solitudine e timidezza. Lo consiglio, è stata una lettura piacevole!
August 28, 2014
This was an odd book. Talking to cats is one thing but petrol pumps? This makes me wonder what is up with her mental state, especially with her obsession with what happened to Harriet. Speaking of Harriet why didn't she just ask the old woman in the first place rather than brooding over it all?
October 12, 2021
Eleven year-old Maria Foster talks to inanimate objects. She has conversations with cats and trees, too. It is clear she is curious and smart and the conversations she begins with her parents, based on what she has observed in the world or something she read leave them bewildered, as if they just don’t know what to do with a girl so serious and deep. So only-child Maria has created a world where objects listen and engage, give her advice and solace in ways her family cannot.
We meet the Foster family on their summer holiday to Lyme Regis. They are staying in an old Victorian house for a month. It has a resident cat, furniture that has seen decades of wear and an old tree in the backyard perfect for Maria to sit in and ponder. Next door is a small hotel where families of holiday makers are spending the summer and from her perch she notices one particular family with one particular boy. Once they meet Maria and Martin, after some initial hesitation, find in each other kindred spirits interested in the larger questions of life. They roam the hills and beaches picking up fossils, observing the varied geology of the land, which leads to a discussion of evolution when they visit a nearby museum.
Lyme Regis fossils.
In a complementary story line, Maria has become obsessed with a girl her age named Harriet who lived in the house Maria’s family is renting a hundred years ago. A photograph of a piece of Harriet’s embroidery with an ominous signature has captured Maria’s imagination. She is convinced Harriet died young and is determined to find out her story. She keeps most of her thoughts to herself until she makes a small attempt to share them with Martin. Mostly, though, she is content to have found an exploring buddy who shares her new found interests in the fossils and geology of the hills and cliffs they wander.
There are wonderful supernatural elements in the story that affect only Maria besides the cat, the petrol pump and the tree that she has conversations with: there is an insistent sound of a barking dog and the creaking noise of a swing in motion. Maria scours the neighborhood for physical evidence of these to no avail and as this part of the story unfolds they play an important part in the mystery of Harriet.
As Maria explores both her inner and outer worlds she grows in confidence and acceptance of herself and can acknowledge that what she thinks about and what interests her are genuine and noble. She has become communicative and expressive with her mother who is finally able to see and understand this daughter who had always seemed so shut up within herself.
A really wonderful book about a smart, serious, curious kind of girl that should be celebrated!
We meet the Foster family on their summer holiday to Lyme Regis. They are staying in an old Victorian house for a month. It has a resident cat, furniture that has seen decades of wear and an old tree in the backyard perfect for Maria to sit in and ponder. Next door is a small hotel where families of holiday makers are spending the summer and from her perch she notices one particular family with one particular boy. Once they meet Maria and Martin, after some initial hesitation, find in each other kindred spirits interested in the larger questions of life. They roam the hills and beaches picking up fossils, observing the varied geology of the land, which leads to a discussion of evolution when they visit a nearby museum.
Lyme Regis fossils.
In a complementary story line, Maria has become obsessed with a girl her age named Harriet who lived in the house Maria’s family is renting a hundred years ago. A photograph of a piece of Harriet’s embroidery with an ominous signature has captured Maria’s imagination. She is convinced Harriet died young and is determined to find out her story. She keeps most of her thoughts to herself until she makes a small attempt to share them with Martin. Mostly, though, she is content to have found an exploring buddy who shares her new found interests in the fossils and geology of the hills and cliffs they wander.
There are wonderful supernatural elements in the story that affect only Maria besides the cat, the petrol pump and the tree that she has conversations with: there is an insistent sound of a barking dog and the creaking noise of a swing in motion. Maria scours the neighborhood for physical evidence of these to no avail and as this part of the story unfolds they play an important part in the mystery of Harriet.
As Maria explores both her inner and outer worlds she grows in confidence and acceptance of herself and can acknowledge that what she thinks about and what interests her are genuine and noble. She has become communicative and expressive with her mother who is finally able to see and understand this daughter who had always seemed so shut up within herself.
A really wonderful book about a smart, serious, curious kind of girl that should be celebrated!
January 17, 2022
A very interesting book in that the writing was just lovely. Lively writes beautifully and there are many special passages in the book. The characters in the book, however, seemed very two dimensional to me. Almost like paper dolls.
Maria is an extremely quiet and small girl for her age. She and her parents go to the seaside for their summer holiday where Maria has a number of experiences, both real and imagined. Her parents seem so flat that I could almost cry for this little girl. Her father mostly reads the newspaper while her mother works on a quilt day after day.
The mother is fine with sending Maria off to the neighbors for the day but clearly struggles with reciprocation. This reminds me of a number of parents I know who have only children. They think nothing of sending their child off for someone else to watch but aren't forthcoming about paying back.
I think that Lively may have written this based on her own childhood experiences. It must have been an empty and lonely time in many ways, depending on her imagination to fill the many gaps.
I would recommend the book, most likely to adults who love reading wonderful children's books, but don't think it would be so popular for children nowadays as they may not appreciate the writing, and Maria's life would seem boring and empty to them.
Maria is an extremely quiet and small girl for her age. She and her parents go to the seaside for their summer holiday where Maria has a number of experiences, both real and imagined. Her parents seem so flat that I could almost cry for this little girl. Her father mostly reads the newspaper while her mother works on a quilt day after day.
The mother is fine with sending Maria off to the neighbors for the day but clearly struggles with reciprocation. This reminds me of a number of parents I know who have only children. They think nothing of sending their child off for someone else to watch but aren't forthcoming about paying back.
I think that Lively may have written this based on her own childhood experiences. It must have been an empty and lonely time in many ways, depending on her imagination to fill the many gaps.
I would recommend the book, most likely to adults who love reading wonderful children's books, but don't think it would be so popular for children nowadays as they may not appreciate the writing, and Maria's life would seem boring and empty to them.
July 11, 2022
Like The House in Norham Gardens, but less captivating.
Best for socially withdrawn, isolated, somewhat lonely, introspective eleven to twelve year old girls with strong imaginations and a nerdy paleontological streak. Or bookish children forced to vacation with emotionally unavailable and distant parents on the Devonshire coast.
Or Penelope Lively fans who also enjoyed Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (only, NB: Devonian period, and for the ammonites Jurassic - Cretaceous), especially those who would find a neighbouring house full of rambunctious, misbehaving children and their boundary-less mothers an abject horror and threat to an otherwise quiet holiday.
Not my favourite story of hers, but still enjoyable. It's a quick one at 139-odd pages, anyway.
Best for socially withdrawn, isolated, somewhat lonely, introspective eleven to twelve year old girls with strong imaginations and a nerdy paleontological streak. Or bookish children forced to vacation with emotionally unavailable and distant parents on the Devonshire coast.
Or Penelope Lively fans who also enjoyed Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (only, NB: Devonian period, and for the ammonites Jurassic - Cretaceous), especially those who would find a neighbouring house full of rambunctious, misbehaving children and their boundary-less mothers an abject horror and threat to an otherwise quiet holiday.
Not my favourite story of hers, but still enjoyable. It's a quick one at 139-odd pages, anyway.
July 12, 2020
Indiscutibile la bravura della scrittrice nel costruire la psicologia dei personaggi, così da renderli “persone vive”: ho avuto modo di apprezzarla in diversi suoi romanzi.
Però, fatta eccezione per questa anche qui confermata abilità, il romanzo L’estate in cui tutto cambiò mi è sembrato troppo leggero, come una parentesi, attestata anche dal numero esiguo di pagine.
Un racconto di formazione, probabilmente più adatto a un lettore pre adolescente.
Io che ormai son fin troppo lontana da quel periodo e non ho mai avuto propensione per fantasie che non fossero piuttosto somiglianti alla realtà (mai, per esempio, e mi riferisco proprio alla protagonista del libro, avrei pensato di “conversare” con animali e oggetti, dando loro voce), non sono proprio riuscita ad appassionarmi a questo racconto.
Però passerei volentieri una settimana - non di più! - nel luogo dove la ragazzina trascorre l’estate che la cambierà.
Però, fatta eccezione per questa anche qui confermata abilità, il romanzo L’estate in cui tutto cambiò mi è sembrato troppo leggero, come una parentesi, attestata anche dal numero esiguo di pagine.
Un racconto di formazione, probabilmente più adatto a un lettore pre adolescente.
Io che ormai son fin troppo lontana da quel periodo e non ho mai avuto propensione per fantasie che non fossero piuttosto somiglianti alla realtà (mai, per esempio, e mi riferisco proprio alla protagonista del libro, avrei pensato di “conversare” con animali e oggetti, dando loro voce), non sono proprio riuscita ad appassionarmi a questo racconto.
Però passerei volentieri una settimana - non di più! - nel luogo dove la ragazzina trascorre l’estate che la cambierà.
March 15, 2018
A Stitch In Time by Penelope Lively is a children's classic that can be enjoyed by anyone at any time.
First published in 1976, the action in this timeless classic is in 1975. It is set over the summer holidays in Lyme Regis. Life was simpler then - with picnics, hide and seek, books on rainy afternoons, collecting fossils. No modern technology or disturbance from mobile phones.
The two holidaying families contrast sharply. Maria and her parents are quiet. Martin and his family are loud and gregarious.
Childhood is a carefree time where we make memories. It is also a time of over active imaginations and imaginary friends. Children seem more sensitive to the past whereas adults concentrate on the here and now.
A Stitch In Time is a delightful read that transported me back to my childhood. Like Maria in the story, I too was eleven in the summer of 1975.
A children's classic to be forever enjoyed by generations of adults and children alike.
First published in 1976, the action in this timeless classic is in 1975. It is set over the summer holidays in Lyme Regis. Life was simpler then - with picnics, hide and seek, books on rainy afternoons, collecting fossils. No modern technology or disturbance from mobile phones.
The two holidaying families contrast sharply. Maria and her parents are quiet. Martin and his family are loud and gregarious.
Childhood is a carefree time where we make memories. It is also a time of over active imaginations and imaginary friends. Children seem more sensitive to the past whereas adults concentrate on the here and now.
A Stitch In Time is a delightful read that transported me back to my childhood. Like Maria in the story, I too was eleven in the summer of 1975.
A children's classic to be forever enjoyed by generations of adults and children alike.
March 27, 2020
As you can see, it took me half a year to finish this book. I’m not sure why I put it down six months ago, or why I picked it up again a week ago. And of course I had to begin at the beginning. It was a lovely, dreamy idyll, part real, part imagination, both rich. Penelope Lively is a beautiful writer. She makes a barebones story an enchantment.
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