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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
Brilliant book. All sketched like wood-etching, past and present characters solid enough you can feel their texture, smell the colonial american air--all that bits and stuffs. Oy, and the history seeps through as it ought: as if it might be your yesterday, not your 200 years passed ancestry.
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Five things about The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pop 📚📚📚📚📚
1. Peggy, Pat, Uncle Enid, Barbara, Peaceable…this book is populated with some of the most wonderful characters!
2. It’s a delightful ghost story.
3. It’s an endearing coming of age story.
4. It’s funny and romantic and informative.
5. What a gem of a cozy read! I recommend for people that loved Johnny Tremaine or Witch of Blackbird Pond.
1. Peggy, Pat, Uncle Enid, Barbara, Peaceable…this book is populated with some of the most wonderful characters!
2. It’s a delightful ghost story.
3. It’s an endearing coming of age story.
4. It’s funny and romantic and informative.
5. What a gem of a cozy read! I recommend for people that loved Johnny Tremaine or Witch of Blackbird Pond.
This is a beautifully written story, set (I think?) sometime between the 1930s and 1950s and also during the Revolutionary War (or whatever they call it in England). I especially liked the accuracy of the details and the fact that redcoats and patriots (not terribly patriotic toward old England) alike were very human and likable.
I so wish Elizabeth Marie Pope had written more. I recommend this one for anyone who enjoys a good story.
I so wish Elizabeth Marie Pope had written more. I recommend this one for anyone who enjoys a good story.
What a lovely little book with a perfect mixture of adventure, history, spies, love and intrigue!
Just as good eight years later! This is one of my favorite classic young adult books, and I love the witty banter, clever plot, and ingenuous narrative devices. I was afraid that I wouldn't like this quite as much as an adult, but it is still captivating, and I have an even greater appreciation for the historical elements now.
This has been on my to-read shelf for a very long time and I'm so glad I finally got around to reading it. So very engaging and lovely and I would've been quite happy to spend way more time with these characters (tell me more about your lives, ghosts! And people too!).
4.5 stars
The Sherwood Ring has been one of my favorite children's/YA books for decades. I first discovered it shortly after college. I had fallen in love with Elizabeth Marie Pope's only other YA novel, The Perilous Gard, a few years earlier, but I was unaware that the author had written another book. And then one day I stumbled across The Sherwood Ring, gasped in surprise and delight, and devoured it in a single sitting.
Based on the title, I was expecting something to do with Robin Hood. What I found was something completely different from either Robin Hood or The Perilous Gard's Elizabethan setting, but fully as satisfying as either.
The setup recalls the gothic novels popular in the 1950s. 17-year-old Peggy Grahame, orphaned when her artist father dies, is entrusted to the dubious care of her Uncle Enos at Rest-and-be-thankful, the family estate in upstate New York. Uncle Enos isn't cruel or strict, but he seems very worried over something he refuses to discuss. And he is even more neglectful than Peggy's father, paying her little attention and spending most of his time obsessively engaged in historical research, only taking the time to forbid Peggy's new acquaintance Pat, an English research student, to set foot on the property or pursue his friendship with Peggy. In fact, Uncle Enos behaves very much like an 18th-century head of the family...and lives like one as well. A stickler for historical accuracy, Enos hasn't allowed the house or estate to be modernized in any way; there isn't even a telephone. So perhaps it's not surprising that the house has ghosts.
But here the book departs somewhat from gothic tropes. Far from the chilling ghosts of a gothic novel, the ghosts of Rest-and-be-thankful are kind, helpful; aside from their 18th-century attire and their ability to appear and disappear, they are difficult to distinguish from living people. They're also remarkably loquacious. The stories they relate make up a narrative-within-the-narrative, more interesting than the present in Peggy's (and most readers') eyes. Their tale involves Revolutionary War-era espionage in the form of an underground Loyalist resistance led by an intelligent, wily British officer, and the attempts of one of Peggy's ancestors to capture him. Intertwined with the drama and excitement are several romances. And as the ghosts unfold their stories, Peggy begins to suspect that whatever is troubling Uncle Enos is somehow linked to the secrets of the past.
I'll be honest: for me, the best character in the whole book is the British officer. He's affable, quick-witted, honorable, and somehow both arrogant and self-deprecating, all of which add up to a thoroughly charming rogue. But the other characters are delightful as well, with the notable exception of Uncle Enos. Peggy's ancestor Barbara, beautiful and headstrong, is a force to be reckoned with, and the other two ghosts are are interesting as well. Peggy herself is intelligent and sympathetic, with an inner strength that becomes more apparent as time goes on. And Pat is friendly and practical, though his sense of humor masks a firm determination.
The Sherwood Ring holds up surprisingly well for a 60-year-old book. It is of course dated in the details of the "modern" portions of the book: there are no cell phones, for instance, and no computers to aid Uncle Enos in his historical research. The book is dated in its assumptions as well: no one suggests that Peggy should go to college or prepare herself for a career, and she is considered old enough to think of marriage. And yet none of that matters. Rather than coming across as contemporary-but-dated, the sections set in Peggy's present simply feel like more recent history than the Revolutionary War sections; that both are historical from the reader's perspective may actually add to the charm of the book.
The Sherwood Ring is still available in paperback (links above.) If you enjoy YA historical fiction, I highly recommend it.
Review originally published at The Bookwyrm's Hoard.
PopSugar Reading Challenge 2019: a book with multiple POVs
The Sherwood Ring has been one of my favorite children's/YA books for decades. I first discovered it shortly after college. I had fallen in love with Elizabeth Marie Pope's only other YA novel, The Perilous Gard, a few years earlier, but I was unaware that the author had written another book. And then one day I stumbled across The Sherwood Ring, gasped in surprise and delight, and devoured it in a single sitting.
Based on the title, I was expecting something to do with Robin Hood. What I found was something completely different from either Robin Hood or The Perilous Gard's Elizabethan setting, but fully as satisfying as either.
The setup recalls the gothic novels popular in the 1950s. 17-year-old Peggy Grahame, orphaned when her artist father dies, is entrusted to the dubious care of her Uncle Enos at Rest-and-be-thankful, the family estate in upstate New York. Uncle Enos isn't cruel or strict, but he seems very worried over something he refuses to discuss. And he is even more neglectful than Peggy's father, paying her little attention and spending most of his time obsessively engaged in historical research, only taking the time to forbid Peggy's new acquaintance Pat, an English research student, to set foot on the property or pursue his friendship with Peggy. In fact, Uncle Enos behaves very much like an 18th-century head of the family...and lives like one as well. A stickler for historical accuracy, Enos hasn't allowed the house or estate to be modernized in any way; there isn't even a telephone. So perhaps it's not surprising that the house has ghosts.
But here the book departs somewhat from gothic tropes. Far from the chilling ghosts of a gothic novel, the ghosts of Rest-and-be-thankful are kind, helpful; aside from their 18th-century attire and their ability to appear and disappear, they are difficult to distinguish from living people. They're also remarkably loquacious. The stories they relate make up a narrative-within-the-narrative, more interesting than the present in Peggy's (and most readers') eyes. Their tale involves Revolutionary War-era espionage in the form of an underground Loyalist resistance led by an intelligent, wily British officer, and the attempts of one of Peggy's ancestors to capture him. Intertwined with the drama and excitement are several romances. And as the ghosts unfold their stories, Peggy begins to suspect that whatever is troubling Uncle Enos is somehow linked to the secrets of the past.
I'll be honest: for me, the best character in the whole book is the British officer. He's affable, quick-witted, honorable, and somehow both arrogant and self-deprecating, all of which add up to a thoroughly charming rogue. But the other characters are delightful as well, with the notable exception of Uncle Enos. Peggy's ancestor Barbara, beautiful and headstrong, is a force to be reckoned with, and the other two ghosts are are interesting as well. Peggy herself is intelligent and sympathetic, with an inner strength that becomes more apparent as time goes on. And Pat is friendly and practical, though his sense of humor masks a firm determination.
The Sherwood Ring holds up surprisingly well for a 60-year-old book. It is of course dated in the details of the "modern" portions of the book: there are no cell phones, for instance, and no computers to aid Uncle Enos in his historical research. The book is dated in its assumptions as well: no one suggests that Peggy should go to college or prepare herself for a career, and she is considered old enough to think of marriage. And yet none of that matters. Rather than coming across as contemporary-but-dated, the sections set in Peggy's present simply feel like more recent history than the Revolutionary War sections; that both are historical from the reader's perspective may actually add to the charm of the book.
The Sherwood Ring is still available in paperback (links above.) If you enjoy YA historical fiction, I highly recommend it.
Review originally published at The Bookwyrm's Hoard.
PopSugar Reading Challenge 2019: a book with multiple POVs
adventurous
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated