Boston lived at The Manor for almost 50 years, in which time she created a romantic garden and wrote all her children’s books. The children arrive and begin to explore the river and canals round Green Knowe by canoe. The magic of Green Knowe is much more fantasy-based in this novel: the children see flying horses, meet a giant, and witness a Bronze Age moon ceremony. The subtext, of homeless children being protected and healed by the house and its enchantments, is particularly strong. In 1956, Anthony Boucher praised the first novel as "sheer literary magic: subtle, tenuous, enchanting and wholly convincing." [11] It is a beautifully told story about a little boy who's sent to live with his grandmother in a very rural England. He moves into a vast old house, complete with whimsical topiary, an empty stable, a river, and - ghosts. It's obvious that that's what Tolly's strange new playmates are, at least to us, but they seem as alive as anyone else in the story, which moves seamlessly from present to past to present again, using the medium of the grandmother's stories, coupled with Tolly's curiousity and the childrens' memories. Peter B. Flint, "Lucy Boston, 97, English Author of Illustrated Stories for Children", The New York Times, 31 May 1990, p. D23: obituary

Green Knowe is a series of six children's novels written by Lucy M. Boston, illustrated by her son Peter Boston, [1] and published from 1954 to 1976. [2] [3] It features a very old house, Green Knowe, based on Boston's home at the time, The Manor in Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire, England. [4] In the novels she brings to life the people she imagines might have lived there. [5]The Children of Green Knowe is, overall, a quiet book, a book of discovery. Though the remnants of an old curse present a threat, it's only briefly. Stronger than the sense of danger is the sense of joy: Joy of place and joy in nature. Tolly makes friends not only with the children, but with the birds and small animals in the winter garden. Julian Fellowes wrote and directed a film adaptation of The Chimneys of Green Knowe, titled From Time to Time (2009). With changes in climate, central heating and then general interconnection of the world such events just do not happen (well at least in the centre of England at least) any more but they did when I was growing up. So here we have a tale obviously before my time (thank you) but with such strong echoes of my childhood. I could not do anything but fall in love with this story. It is such a gentle and honest book that you just want to be part of it and parts of it certainly do nothing to discourage you from it. During her long life, she distinguished herself as a writer, mainly of children’s books, and as the creator of a magical garden. She was also an accomplished artist who had studied drawing and painting in Vienna, and a needlewoman who produced a series of patchworks. Jasper Rose, Lucy Boston, a Bodley Head Monograph, 1965: discusses and analyses Lucy Boston as a children's writer. LCCN 66--11118

Tolly nearly seeing the children: "Perhaps it was only the wind, but there seemed to be some movement. A great deal was going on out of sight." Jordan, Robin G. (24 December 2014). "The Children of Green Knowe: Make It a Christmas Tradition". Anglicans Ablaze. Spooks, Spooks, Spooks: Stories and Poems of the Supernatural". GoodReads. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. As I have said many times before I am trying to both broaden and recapture the experience of exploring other books including childrens classics I should have really read as I grew up. I have to admit rather guiltily that they are also a great escape from the stress and strain of working from home in this pandemic as well.The novel depicts the magical influence of the past on the present when the meeting of a potent place and a sensitive person is intensified by art, knowledge, desire, imagination, and love, such that objects and figures from the past persist beyond their eras and enter and change the lives of people in the present. This can be very moving, as when Mrs. Oldknow calls Tolly Toby, the pet name of both her own son (who died during WWI) and of the eldest boy in the painting (who died over 300 years ago), because the three boys fuse in her heart and mind and hence in the "real" world. Tolly accepts being called Toby without any indignation. After all, he has come home. Some of the stories feature Toseland, a boy called Tolly for short, and his great-grandmother Mrs. Oldknow. Green Knowe is inhabited by the spirits of people who lived there in ages past, and more than one of the spirits Tolly knows as children later grow into adults. Other supernatural entities in the series include the children's dog, Orlando; a demonic tree-spirit, Green Noah (manifesting as a large tree on the grounds of the manor house); and an animated statue of St. Christopher. Mrs. Oldknow and Tolly playing and singing a cradlesong, "while, four hundred years ago, a baby went to sleep."

In the beginning of Lucy M. Boston's wonderful children's book, The Children of Green Knowe (1954), seven-year-old Toseland (pet name Tolly) travels by train through the flooded British countryside to spend his Christmas holidays with his great-grandmother Mrs. Oldknow in her old castle-like house Green Noah (true name Green Knowe). Tolly is a lonely and imaginative boy, Mrs. Oldknow a solitary and imaginative old lady, and they hit it off immediately, encouraging each other's fancies and treating each other with mutual respect and affection. The Chimneys was adapted for film as From Time to Time (2009), with Maggie Smith as Mrs. Oldknow, Hugh Bonneville as Captain Oldknowe, and Alex Etel as Tolly. Lucy Wood was born in Southport, Lancashire, on 10 December 1892, the fifth of six children of James Wood, engineer and sometime Mayor of Southport, and Mary Garrett. She had two older brothers, two older sisters and a younger brother. In her memoir, Perverse and Foolish, she describes life in an affluent middle class Victorian family of committed Wesleyans. Her father was "eccentric with big ideas, a small, good-humoured, dynamic man". [2]

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Flint, Peter B. (31 May 1990). "Lucy Boston, 97, English Author Of Illustrated Stories for Children". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 22 February 2023. Like many of my generation, I was spellbound by the BBC's 1980s adaptation of Lucy Boston's "The Children of Green Knowe". It was one of those high quality children's dramas for which the BBC was renowned at that time and to this day, my sister and I will burst into giggles if one of us utters the line, "Green Noah! Demon Tree!"

Tolly is a young boy whose mom is dead and his father and stepmother live in Burma. He has been at boarding school where they have been very kind to him but he really longs to belong somewhere with his own family. Then suddenly he does! His great-grandmother OldKnow sends for him to come to live with her at the family home Green Knowe. He takes the train there and is a little excited and a little nervous.Crosscurrents in The River at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston" by David Lenander from Children's Literature Association Quarterly, January 1989 doi:10.1353/chq.1989.0000 The Chinese boy Ping has returned to Green Knowe alone to stay with Mrs. Oldknow. During a visit to a zoo in London before his arrival at Green Knowe, he is fascinated by the giant gorilla Hanno; as a refugee, Ping feels a powerful bond. After Hanno escapes from the zoo and makes his way to Green Knowe, Ping befriends him. The early chapters of the book detail Hanno's life as a young gorilla in Africa, and the trauma and cruelty of his capture, with great compassion and finesse. A Stranger at Green Knowe was awarded the 1961 Carnegie Medal. [6] An Enemy at Green Knowe (1964) [ edit ] When she left school Lucy went to a finishing school in Paris and the time came for her to be formally received into the Wesleyan community. To her mother’s horror, she refused. Her mother wept and implored, told her she was "lost", but Lucy remained adamant. "Yet as I stepped out of the fold into the unknown I repeated privately to myself, ‘He shall keep my soul until that day’. I knew I was in search, not in denial. The abandonment of one’s father’s faith is a deep fear and sorrow and I felt an outsider." Green Knowe - once known as Green Noah, but renamed because of a dreadful association - is a house where things come unexpectedly to life, and where the past lies side by side with the present. Unfortunately not all the past was happy, and at least one of the things that is waiting its chance to come to life is very dangerous indeed. I love these books, and The Children of Green Knowe, first in the series is one of my favorites(1). The Green Knowe series as a whole is the story of a house that has stood for so long and been loved so well that time is flexible. People who lived in and loved the house can meet, even after centuries.