Fog Magic

This is a cute old-fashioned timeslip story. If you like that sort of thing (think Tom's Midnight Garden, Charlotte Sometimes, or A Traveller In Time) then you'll probably like this as well! If that doesn't sound like your sort of thing, then maybe you'll find it a little slow. Just a warning: this is called Fog Magic, but the fantasy is pretty low-key here. The magic simply involves going back (100 years?) in time. I'm sure that for modern readers, life in a 1940s or 19th century Nova Scotia fishing village seems equally foreign. I enjoyed it, but if you're looking for more fantasy than historical fiction, you may not appreciate this. I don't know where I got it, but this book has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. I never had much of an interest in reading it until I became interested in children's timeslip stories. Most of these are impossible to get on Kindle, so I've been ordering used copies on Amazon. Since I owned this one already, I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. One of the more interesting things about this book is its setting - a fishing village in Nova Scotia. It really reminded me of some of L.M. Montgomery's stories. Most of her stories are set in the farmlands of Prince Edward Island, but some are set in fishing villages. Obviously this book was written after Montgomery had written many of her stories and in a slightly different location, but I can absolutely see the similarities. The difference here is that Montgomery's view of fishing villages often was that they were filled with harshness, poverty,and vices - she was a middle/upper class minister's wife after all. Julia L. Sauer, on the other hand, is obviously charmed by them. It was refreshing to get this point of view. The ending of Fog Magic was slightly disappointing and abrupt. There were so many questions left unanswered. We never learn how the magic works - why can Addingtons visit the past? How many have done so? Do they all go to the same time period, or do they travel a set amount of time into the past? What is the mystery of Anthony? Does a ghost really haunt the woods? It had even less explanations than your average old-fashioned children's fantasy. Despite all that, I actually appreciated it. Sometimes explanations of magic can be disappointing and slightly stupid (I wasn't particularly impressed by the explanation in Tom's Midnight Garden, for example). The vagueness just adds to the mystery of the story. As Mrs. Morrill says in the book, "Of course there's an answer [...] But that doesn't mean we need to know the answer." Review originally from my Goodreads page

When Marnie Was There

What an enchanting book. 



I've been wanting to read When Marnie Was There for over a year now, but I had a ridiculous amount of trouble getting my hands on the book. Until the last year or so, it hadn't had many printings, so there aren't all too many copies out there. When Studio Ghibli announced their adaptation, prices for the book rose astronomically. When I was looking to buy the book a year ago, I couldn't find any copy for less than a few hundred dollars (seriously). No library even close to me had it either! Amazon promised that a new reprint would be available in 2015 (including an ebook version!) So this week I went to look and saw that Amazon had changed the release date to 2018 and I learned that Americans aren't able to order ebooks from Amazon UK. Despite this trouble, I finally was able to get my hands on a used hard copy, mostly due to the recent UK reprinting bringing prices down. A note to my fellow Americans: it will take a while for an American version to be released, so do try and get your hands on a UK version - it is worth it!

Like I said, I did finally manage to get my hands on a copy, and luckily I loved When Marnie Was There as much as I thought I would - more, possibly. I've been wanting to read this for two reasons - one is the Studio Ghibli adaptation I mentioned and the second is that I've been really interested in mid-century children's timeslip stories. I've seen When Marnie Was There compared mainly to Penelope Farmer's Charlotte Sometimes, which is an absolutely gorgeous book (note to anyone who loved When Marnie Was There: go read Charlotte Sometimes! It is very similar and just as wonderful!). Finishing Charlotte Sometimes last year just strengthened my resolve to get my hands on When Marnie Was There. And now that I've finished that, I'm eagerly looking forward to the Studio Ghibli movie.

When Marnie Was There is about a lonely young foster child named Anna who is sent to a little seaside village for the summer. While she is playing outside, Anna meets a mysterious girl named Marnie...



I liked the character of Anna quite a lot and I think a lot of readers will be able to identify with her loneliness and feelings of being on the outside looking in. And I absolutely loved the character of Marnie. She's lively, impulsive, mysterious - really one of the most engaging characters I've read about in a children's book. The parts of the book with her are the best, and once she is gone, the end parts of the book seem fairly conventional. That being said, as I read through the book I came to care about Anna, so I didn't really mind her happy, if conventional, ending.



I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves children's books like Charlotte Sometimes, Tom's Midnight Garden, or Playing Beatie Bow. For anyone used to only very modern children's fiction, it might seem a tad old-fashioned, but I think anyone with a love of older children's books will appreciate When Marnie Was There. 5/5 stars.

Review originally from my Goodreads page