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A Castle of Bone
Hugh's father buys him a cupboard to put his clothes in; that is the one thing he cannot do as it turns out, because this cupboard changes things - sometimes dangerously.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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142 people want to read
About the author
Penelope Farmer
45 books69 followersPenelope Jane Farmer is an English fiction writer well known for children's fantasy novels. Her best-known novel is Charlotte Sometimes (1969), a boarding-school story that features a multiple time slip.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 16, 2024
A Castle of Bone by Penelope Farmer was a disappointment. Perhaps I am slightly biased, as I have just read two excellent older children’s fantasy books, one by Susan Cooper, and another by Penelope Lively. They were completely different from each other, but both very good of their type. This one however, does not seem to know what it is trying to do.
Do not judge a book by its cover! This Puffin book has a great design: brooding dark orange, with tones of grey-black. A distorted perspective of a castle - almost a silhouette - and full of atmosphere. This is probably the reason why I held on to the book for so many years after I’d first read it, that I could no longer remember anything at all about it. Also, the fact that I have now just listened to the complete text as a talking book, did nothing to hide the pedestrian writing. Writing has to be of good quality to stand up to this.
The title too is intriguing. A good title goes a long way towards making you pick up a book. It derives from another proverb: “better a castle of bones than of stones.” Put simply, this means that a castle built on the success of a strong army is better than one built without it.
In 1260, during the war between Ireland and the Anglo-Normans, a new feeling of resistance sprang up among the Irish against their invaders. “Better a castle of bones than a castle of stones” derives from this historical fact. Does it explain the story? No. I can’t see any connection at all. Presumably Penelope Farmer just liked the image. I think we are first aware of it on page 129. At least that was when I began to think, at last, something is happening!
It starts promisingly enough. On the first page, Hugh opens the cupboard in his bedroom, and out rushes a large white sow. Now that is enough of a surprise to engage any child! And because it is about the most exciting thing to happen, I do wonder whether the publisher advised the author to at least start with an attention-grabber. This is rather borne out by the fact that we suddenly go back a few days, without any sort of indication such as “It all started when ...” to show that chapter one was retrospective. It is added on to the beginning, and merely confusing.
So we have a cupboard which changes things, and could be a portal to another world. It is in a child’s bedroom, and used as a wardrobe. Is this beginning to sound familiar, by any chance?
There is a lot of experimenting with the cupboard to see what it will change. This part is rather like a Science lesson, to find what products derive from which materials. There is a lot of boring detail about Hugh’s daily life. It would have been boring in 1972, when this story was written. It is even more boring now. There is a lot about child-rearing. At one point I looked at my husband (as we were listening to this together) and said, “Is it meant to be funny, perhaps?” but it didn’t seem to either of us that such was the case.
It just went on. We had Hugh’s inner thoughts and feelings; he was a bit of a daydreamer and liked to paint. There were a few strange references to dreams, which may not have been dreams, but then more of the tedious day-to-day events with his family, going shopping, how he felt about his friend Penn, how he felt about his sister, Jean and his neighbour Anna. And what they were all wearing. At one point Hugh scratches his crotch. Oh my.
Yes, there were four children, two girls and two boys, who all spent time together. Does that sound familiar too?
As I said, it gets more interesting on page 129. There are 154 pages in total. Eventually, far later than is believable (after all the shopping expeditions and inconsequential chat) one of the children has the bright idea of talking to the old man who had sold them Hugh’s cupboard. We have a suggestion of the origin of the cupboard, and a strange sequence involving Hugh’s “dreams”, time travelling and Celtic references. The Castle of Bone is explained - after a fashion. Finally:
“There was a sudden and blinding light. The cupboard doors opened, all four of them walked out on to Hugh’s bedroom floor; Hugh, Anna, Jean and lastly Penn in his proper age and size.
The void had gone. Walls had closed round Hugh, confining him, imprisoning him in the narrowest of castles; a castle of bone, he thought. But this castle of bone was himself.”
It’s all very Zen, perhaps because of when it was written. Nevertheless, I would have liked a lot more of this, rather than the scant twenty-five pages at the end of a bland, rather boring and derivative book. (You spotted the four children coming out of the wardrobe, of course. There have been references to apple trees, and hesitation about eating an apple too.) The final chapter is back to the humdrum ordinary life, with Hugh escaping only in his mind. Oh, and there is a newspaper article about the mystery of the apparating large white pig, which is presumably intended to top and tail the novel (if you’ll forgive the pun).
This novel is grossly unbalanced in structure. No wonder I had forgotten everything about it. Penelope Farmer has written quite a lot of books for children and young adults, so perhaps there are better ones. I have heard of “Charlotte Sometimes” - but I doubt whether I will be reading anything else by her. Neither do I recommend this one. The final pages lifted it off one star, but that is all.
Do not judge a book by its cover! This Puffin book has a great design: brooding dark orange, with tones of grey-black. A distorted perspective of a castle - almost a silhouette - and full of atmosphere. This is probably the reason why I held on to the book for so many years after I’d first read it, that I could no longer remember anything at all about it. Also, the fact that I have now just listened to the complete text as a talking book, did nothing to hide the pedestrian writing. Writing has to be of good quality to stand up to this.
The title too is intriguing. A good title goes a long way towards making you pick up a book. It derives from another proverb: “better a castle of bones than of stones.” Put simply, this means that a castle built on the success of a strong army is better than one built without it.
In 1260, during the war between Ireland and the Anglo-Normans, a new feeling of resistance sprang up among the Irish against their invaders. “Better a castle of bones than a castle of stones” derives from this historical fact. Does it explain the story? No. I can’t see any connection at all. Presumably Penelope Farmer just liked the image. I think we are first aware of it on page 129. At least that was when I began to think, at last, something is happening!
It starts promisingly enough. On the first page, Hugh opens the cupboard in his bedroom, and out rushes a large white sow. Now that is enough of a surprise to engage any child! And because it is about the most exciting thing to happen, I do wonder whether the publisher advised the author to at least start with an attention-grabber. This is rather borne out by the fact that we suddenly go back a few days, without any sort of indication such as “It all started when ...” to show that chapter one was retrospective. It is added on to the beginning, and merely confusing.
So we have a cupboard which changes things, and could be a portal to another world. It is in a child’s bedroom, and used as a wardrobe. Is this beginning to sound familiar, by any chance?
There is a lot of experimenting with the cupboard to see what it will change. This part is rather like a Science lesson, to find what products derive from which materials. There is a lot of boring detail about Hugh’s daily life. It would have been boring in 1972, when this story was written. It is even more boring now. There is a lot about child-rearing. At one point I looked at my husband (as we were listening to this together) and said, “Is it meant to be funny, perhaps?” but it didn’t seem to either of us that such was the case.
It just went on. We had Hugh’s inner thoughts and feelings; he was a bit of a daydreamer and liked to paint. There were a few strange references to dreams, which may not have been dreams, but then more of the tedious day-to-day events with his family, going shopping, how he felt about his friend Penn, how he felt about his sister, Jean and his neighbour Anna. And what they were all wearing. At one point Hugh scratches his crotch. Oh my.
Yes, there were four children, two girls and two boys, who all spent time together. Does that sound familiar too?
As I said, it gets more interesting on page 129. There are 154 pages in total. Eventually, far later than is believable (after all the shopping expeditions and inconsequential chat) one of the children has the bright idea of talking to the old man who had sold them Hugh’s cupboard. We have a suggestion of the origin of the cupboard, and a strange sequence involving Hugh’s “dreams”, time travelling and Celtic references. The Castle of Bone is explained - after a fashion. Finally:
“There was a sudden and blinding light. The cupboard doors opened, all four of them walked out on to Hugh’s bedroom floor; Hugh, Anna, Jean and lastly Penn in his proper age and size.
The void had gone. Walls had closed round Hugh, confining him, imprisoning him in the narrowest of castles; a castle of bone, he thought. But this castle of bone was himself.”
It’s all very Zen, perhaps because of when it was written. Nevertheless, I would have liked a lot more of this, rather than the scant twenty-five pages at the end of a bland, rather boring and derivative book. (You spotted the four children coming out of the wardrobe, of course. There have been references to apple trees, and hesitation about eating an apple too.) The final chapter is back to the humdrum ordinary life, with Hugh escaping only in his mind. Oh, and there is a newspaper article about the mystery of the apparating large white pig, which is presumably intended to top and tail the novel (if you’ll forgive the pun).
This novel is grossly unbalanced in structure. No wonder I had forgotten everything about it. Penelope Farmer has written quite a lot of books for children and young adults, so perhaps there are better ones. I have heard of “Charlotte Sometimes” - but I doubt whether I will be reading anything else by her. Neither do I recommend this one. The final pages lifted it off one star, but that is all.
May 14, 2021
Initially this feels like a pale comparison to Charlotte Sometimes: it’s harder to read and more opaque, actively trying to keep you at a distance from the narrative. In fact at times you wonder if Farmer is deliberately choosing to do this, and write a book that is inherently catnip for children’s fiction - magic cupboard; mysterious adventures in another world or time; comedy business with cats and pigs and a character suddenly becoming a baby - and make it as unsettling and “other” as she can. It certainly feels a weirdly passive book - things happen to these characters, events occur to them and they have very little control over the events themselves. It also goes out of its way to hint at stuff and not explain them, as if not explaining the time slip in Charlotte Sometimes has made her decide to take it further. There’s all manner of nudges towards why this is all happening but it’s all knotty and hard to process, deliberately so
But at heart it’s very much a book about adolescence or being on the cusp of it. In the same way that Charlotte Sometimes is about childhood trauma, this is about being lost as an early teenager. The cupboard changes things to their past forms, but not in any way that they can control and it has not so much an unwieldy power as a wildly unpredictable one. All the characters spend time thinking about change and growth and identity, and it’s almost like Farmer is teasing these people with the sort of perfect kids’ book stuff only to make it alarming and strange and unsettling and something they actively do not want. It means the book always feels perpetually out of your grasp but that’s where the power lies. As Hugh realises towards the end he himself is a Castle of Bone and it’s one of the most weirdly profound moments in fiction like this it startles you. God knows how it was received at the time, but it’s a dazzling labyrinth of answers and questions and mysteries, and by god it’s extraordinary
But at heart it’s very much a book about adolescence or being on the cusp of it. In the same way that Charlotte Sometimes is about childhood trauma, this is about being lost as an early teenager. The cupboard changes things to their past forms, but not in any way that they can control and it has not so much an unwieldy power as a wildly unpredictable one. All the characters spend time thinking about change and growth and identity, and it’s almost like Farmer is teasing these people with the sort of perfect kids’ book stuff only to make it alarming and strange and unsettling and something they actively do not want. It means the book always feels perpetually out of your grasp but that’s where the power lies. As Hugh realises towards the end he himself is a Castle of Bone and it’s one of the most weirdly profound moments in fiction like this it startles you. God knows how it was received at the time, but it’s a dazzling labyrinth of answers and questions and mysteries, and by god it’s extraordinary
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 17, 2021
This book is quite intense . . . it starts out seeming like light, fun, fantasy, but turns into something darker and deeper. If you like psychological fantasy, and/or if you have an interest in mythology (because the author makes many mythological allusions, especially to Celtic mythology), then you may find this a fascinating read. Frankly, it's probably of more interest to children's lit aficianados than to actual children, although it might appeal to introspective, dreamy types.
December 26, 2020
A boy obtains a magic cupboard from a junk shop and begins to have strange dreams. Along with his sister and two friends he discovers that items placed inside the cupboard are changed back into their primary state.
It's all rather underwhelming and vague and the conclusion really didn't seem to make much sense, almost as if this was a first draft.
The cover is misleading, and better than the contents!
It's all rather underwhelming and vague and the conclusion really didn't seem to make much sense, almost as if this was a first draft.
The cover is misleading, and better than the contents!
August 26, 2022
I know you're not meant to judge a book by its cover, but as I was reading this, I was getting very interested in how Hugh and Jean and Penn and Anna (two sets of squabbling siblings, friends (frenemies?), neighbours) were going to get from the discovery that Hugh's ugly junk shop cupboard transmogrifies things, to a revolving, nightmarish castle with pterodactyls circling it.
I never did find out, because, unless some pages got stuck together in the steam from the tub, that content was not in the story. Instead, there were chapters upon chapters of quarrelling between friends, bickering between siblings, ugly relationships with distant mothers (of varying varieties), and a lot about middle-grade children suddenly finding themselves in the care of an infant, which they felt they needed to keep a secret. And a crabby pharmacist's assistant, which I felt must have been some sort of personal dig of the author's at an existing person who made her shopping difficult. Which is why I rounded down from 3 stars, because by the time the baby came (and stayed) on the scene, I realised that the screaming girl's face and the spinning castle of bone with flying dinosaurs was becoming less and less likely to satisfactorily develop.
I was liking this up until the halfway mark. Then it took a nosedive (too much squabbling, too much infant care), and then recovered for me with the list of tree species involved (loves me my trees - see my loving review of The Oak King and the Ash Queen! Was hoping there would be some mythical properties of native British trees woven in, but not so much), and then sort of lurched and stumbled its way into an acceptable but somewhat disappointing ending.
All in all, not one of those out-of-print paperbacks worth forking out for. Not bad, not terrible, but any book that leaves me mentally rewriting the entire second half, or even the first half for that matter, doesn't merit a recommendation.
I never did find out, because, unless some pages got stuck together in the steam from the tub, that content was not in the story. Instead, there were chapters upon chapters of quarrelling between friends, bickering between siblings, ugly relationships with distant mothers (of varying varieties), and a lot about middle-grade children suddenly finding themselves in the care of an infant, which they felt they needed to keep a secret. And a crabby pharmacist's assistant, which I felt must have been some sort of personal dig of the author's at an existing person who made her shopping difficult. Which is why I rounded down from 3 stars, because by the time the baby came (and stayed) on the scene, I realised that the screaming girl's face and the spinning castle of bone with flying dinosaurs was becoming less and less likely to satisfactorily develop.
I was liking this up until the halfway mark. Then it took a nosedive (too much squabbling, too much infant care), and then recovered for me with the list of tree species involved (loves me my trees - see my loving review of The Oak King and the Ash Queen! Was hoping there would be some mythical properties of native British trees woven in, but not so much), and then sort of lurched and stumbled its way into an acceptable but somewhat disappointing ending.
All in all, not one of those out-of-print paperbacks worth forking out for. Not bad, not terrible, but any book that leaves me mentally rewriting the entire second half, or even the first half for that matter, doesn't merit a recommendation.
April 14, 2011
Story about four teenagers/children and a cupboard that taks back anything put in it to a former stage in its existence. A strange story, more about atmosphere than anything, but a beautifully effective one in my opinion. Lots of imagery that stays with me, and mythological allusions conveying the breadth and mysteriousness of time. The writing is neat and incisive, and I thought the characterisation was interesting - none of them were wholly likable, but they felt uniquely themselves and I would have liked to know more about them.
did-not-finish
November 20, 2022I picked this book up because Charlotte Sometimes by the same author was one of my favorite childhood books. I realized recently that I'd never read anything else by this author, so decided to pick up another.
This one had a fun premise: a boy gets a new cupboard/wardrobe for his bedroom, and (along with some friends) he discovers that when you put something into the cupboard (a pigskin wallet, some raisins, a book of matches) the thing reverts back into a former state (a live pig, a bunch of grapes, a fir tree sapling).
I don't know what it was about the mid/late 1900s, but they sure loved their magical wardrobes in children's literature. Narnia (1950), The Indian in the Cupboard (1980)...and this book in 1972. I'm sure there are more, but it's definitely interesting that there's something about cupboards that sparks the imagination...
Anyway, I made it about 50 pages into this one before deciding to set it aside. The tone and plot seemed to be all over the place. There was the business with the cupboard, but there were also long dream sequences about a weird castle and long descriptions of strange thoughts that Hugh (the cupboard owner) was having. I'm sure it all ties together and perhaps the plot gets more interesting when (as promised in the description) of of the friends falls into the cupboard and gets reverted into a little boy.....but I just wasn't feeling it.
The tone/style/plot of this book reminded me a lot of books by Ruth Chew that I read when I was a kid. If anyone is still reading those, they might like this book as well.
This one had a fun premise: a boy gets a new cupboard/wardrobe for his bedroom, and (along with some friends) he discovers that when you put something into the cupboard (a pigskin wallet, some raisins, a book of matches) the thing reverts back into a former state (a live pig, a bunch of grapes, a fir tree sapling).
I don't know what it was about the mid/late 1900s, but they sure loved their magical wardrobes in children's literature. Narnia (1950), The Indian in the Cupboard (1980)...and this book in 1972. I'm sure there are more, but it's definitely interesting that there's something about cupboards that sparks the imagination...
Anyway, I made it about 50 pages into this one before deciding to set it aside. The tone and plot seemed to be all over the place. There was the business with the cupboard, but there were also long dream sequences about a weird castle and long descriptions of strange thoughts that Hugh (the cupboard owner) was having. I'm sure it all ties together and perhaps the plot gets more interesting when (as promised in the description) of of the friends falls into the cupboard and gets reverted into a little boy.....but I just wasn't feeling it.
The tone/style/plot of this book reminded me a lot of books by Ruth Chew that I read when I was a kid. If anyone is still reading those, they might like this book as well.
February 28, 2016
Interesting, but very weird. I'd probably have gotten more out of it if I knew more about Arthuriana. Finally figured out that Penn=Pendragon, Anna=Morgana, Jean=Guinevere, and that the cupboard is probably made from the apple trees on Avalon, but couldn't get much beyond that. Especially strange for a children's book--it has lots of metaphysical symbolism, and a very frank portrayal of a dysfunctional family, which might have been its strongest point.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2012
This was an OK story.
November 11, 2021
Strange and atmospheric. A magic cabinet that transforms whatever is put in it, strange dreams, and four unlikable children, but very well written.
December 3, 2025
Not as good as 'Charlotte sometimes', but atmospheric and dreamy. I have to say I liked it very much because I used to have the same sort of dreams as a child of walking towards a castle and always longing to get there. They are less frequent but I still have them sometimes.
I wonder if she had the same sort of dreams since her descriptions are so realistic. Also the quality of writing makes up for any weaknesses in the plot. Her description of the children 's relationships with each other and their respective parents was strangely candid for a children's book. It certainly made me want to read more of her books.
I wonder if she had the same sort of dreams since her descriptions are so realistic. Also the quality of writing makes up for any weaknesses in the plot. Her description of the children 's relationships with each other and their respective parents was strangely candid for a children's book. It certainly made me want to read more of her books.
February 2, 2019
Unusual and poetic book... Not an easy one to quite describe, but good, good writing with an unusual presence about it.
July 5, 2022
Really unsatisfactory! All atmosphere, no structure.
June 17, 2024
This was a captivating read aloud.
July 14, 2014
reviews.metaphorosis.com
3 stars
Hugh and his father pick up a new clothes cupboard at a junk shop, but soon enough he and his friends find the cupboard has special qualities.
Any book where children have to do with a door to a magical world has to contend with comparisons to Narnia, especially if the children are two boys and two girls, and the door is via a magic wardrobe. That said, there's enough that's different here for the book to stand on its own. I know that the book worked well for me when I was young, though I don't recall if that was pre or post-Narnia. I also didn't recall until this read how well this (with its enigmatic stranger) set me up for Thomas Covenant (which this book predates).
Other than the mechanism (which is different in detail), this story isn't really that similar to Narnia. For one thing, almost all the action takes place in the real world. For another, the wardrobe appears to have quite a different function at first.
While the story worked for me as a child, and I strongly remember the impression it left (if not much more), as an adult, I was less taken with it. There's quite a lot of deliberate symbolism, but it doesn't really add up to much, and the story ends without many of the mysteries explained. It's more like the first half of a story than the whole thing. It does wrap up a bit at the end, and apparently it was enough for a child. This time through, though, it left me unsatisfied and disappointed at what I remember as a very good book.
All in all, a fun light read, but perhaps best for young children who will accept vague symbols as significant mysteries.
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