The Enchanted Castle
E. Nesbit
Wordsworth Editions
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**+
DESCRIPTION: The three English siblings Gerald, James, and Katherine usually summer with their cousin Betty at the family home in the countryside, where they can
play and explore as proper children, far from the strict society rules of city life and boarding schools. But when Betty comes down with measles, they find themselves staying
at Katherine's boarding school for the summer. With all the other girls gone home, it won't be so bad a summer holiday... and perhaps they can still find adventures. Their
explorations lead them to a hidden cave and the lush gardens of a great castle, which they immediately declare to be enchanted. A sleeping princess who isn't what she seems,
a troublesome magic ring, and a series of ill-worded wishes soon give the threesome a holiday they'll never forget!
This Wordsworth Classics edition, complete and unabridged, includes the original illustrations by H. R. Millar.
REVIEW: First published in 1907, this centenarian story shows just how far children's literature - and society in general - have come. The over-talkative narration dithers over, around, and behind the story as it follows three privileged English children more or less frittering away their summer holiday. There is no urgency, no enemy, no hardship, no wrong to be made right, no lesson for them to learn or consequences to face, as one would find in more modern stories. (Okay, I take that back. Once in a while, their adventures make them miss their tea. That's a fairly serious prospect for any child in any era.) Of course not. They're wealthy English children; they own the world, after all, and the world darned well owes them a pleasantly diverting (yet none too trying) magical adventure to fill an otherwise dreary summer away from home. In Nesbit's time, I suppose, simply being schoolchildren on holiday provided sufficient motive power to drive a plot. Anyone of lower classes, lesser education, or (Heavens forfend) less-than-alabaster skin color is brushed aside with casual backhanded insults and stereotyping. Nesbit's audience likely would have thought as little of the slights and slurs as she herself did - she clearly never considered the possibility that such individuals might read this book - but to modern eyes they glare. But it's unfair to blame her for being a product of her society... even if some of the language probably makes this book unfit for modern elementary school libraries. Looking past that, Nesbit concocts some truly imaginative moments, with a garden full of living statues and hidden wonders within the castle. The girls - Katherine and Mabel, the erstwhile "sleeping princess" - show a fair bit of pluck for their era, and manage to not be deadweight. I also liked the old-school illustrations by Millar; there's just something about a nicely-executed ink illustration that adds an extra touch of magic to any story. Considering how long ago this book was written, I might have been willing to give the story the benefit of the doubt with an Okay rating, but the ending sank that hope. (No spoilers here, but it somehow managed to make an already-pointless story even more pointless... an astounding feat which probably should be rewarded with a star all on its own, but won't be.) At the end of the day, The Enchanted Castle is an occasionally whimsical, mostly tedious window into the fictional expectations of a (thankfully) bygone era.
You might also enjoy:
Bright Shadow (Avi, YA Fiction - A kindly serving girl becomes the bearer of five wishes that work)
Midnight Magic (Avi, YA Fiction - A condemned charlatan mage and his loyal apprentice must solve a magical mystery or face death)
The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum, YA Fiction - A tornado sweeps a Kansas girl and her dog into a magical world)
A Treasury of Witches and Wizards (David Bennet, editor, YA Fiction - An anthology of stories and fairy tales about magic)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury, YA Fiction - Two Midwestern boys discover the sinister secrets behind a visiting carnival)
Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold! (Terry Brooks, Fiction - A lawyer buys a magic kingdom from a high-end catalog)
The Best of Lewis Carroll (Lewis Carroll, YA Fiction - Includes the adventures of Alice, who finds all sorts of strangeness down rabbit holes and through looking glasses)
Do-It-Yourself Magic (Ruth Chew, YA Fiction - Two kids buy a magical "Build Anything Kit" at a department store)
Things Not Seen (Andrew Clements, YA Fiction - A boy wakes up to discover he's become invisible)
The Magic Shop Books (Bruce Coville, YA Fiction - Kids with problems find unusual assistance via a mysterious magic shop, that never seems to be in the same place twice)
The Fire Within (Chris D'Lacey, YA Fiction - A college boy discovers something unusual about the clay dragons made by his mysterious landlady)
Knight's Castle (Edward Eager, YA Fiction - Four kids find themselves on a series of magical adventures after one makes a careless wish on a magical toy)
The Inkheart trilogy (Cornelia Funke, YA Fiction - A bookbinder's daughter learns she shares her father's gift of reading storybooks to life)
The Fire Rose (Mercedes Lackey, YA Fiction - A bookish turn-of-the-century girl finds herself unwittingly employed to a powerful fire mage)
The Chronicles of Narnia (C. S. Lewis, YA Fiction - English children find their way to the magical realm of Narnia, creation of the Lion Aslan)
Eccentric Circles (Rebecca Lickiss, Fiction - A woman finds a magical world through the back door of her late great-grandmother's cottage)
The Fablehaven series (Brandon Mull, YA Fiction - Two siblings discover a threatened magical sanctuary on their grandparents' sprawling estate)
Merlin's Mistake (Robert Newman, YA Fiction - A boy eager for adventure undertakes a quest to free someone of a botched christening gift by the wizard Merlin)
Larklight (Philip Reeve, YA Fiction - In a Victorian-era space adventure, two British children embark upon a singular adventure through the aether of space)
The Castle in the Attic (Elizabeth Winthrop, YA Fiction - A boy discovers something magical about an old model castle)
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