Familiar and Haunting

May 1, 2002
Fans of Philippa Pearce will savor each of the 37 tales in Familiar and Haunting: Collected Stories. The volume brings together entries from The Rope and Other Stories, published in Great Britain in 2001; and from three books previously published in the U.S. as well: What the Neighbors Did and Other Stories (1973); The Shadow Cage and Other Tales of the Supernatural (1977); and Who's Afraid? and Other Strange Stories (1987).

July 1, 2002
Gr 5-8 -An aptly named collection by one of England's most accomplished writers for young people. The stories will be familiar to some readers because many of them were published in the U.S. in What the Neighbors Did and Other Stories (1973; o.p.), The Shadow-Cage and Other Tales of the Supernatural (1977, both Crowell), and Who's Afraid and Other Strange Stories (Greenwillow, 1987). But another kind of familiarity, that of emotion, pervades these tales. The selections are filled with many characters, ordinary everyday youngsters, often alone, who are careful watchers of the world around them. Pearce's superb writing brings into sharp focus their perceptions and feelings, so that readers sense that they have been there before, experienced the sensation, been overcome with the same emotion. The supernatural stories are clever and mildly unsettling, often containing a strange twist or an eccentric touch-a child imprisoned in a cage of shadows, a dog who rids a house of rats that inhabit a boy's dreams, even a ghost sitting at the top of an apple tree. The realistic tales are haunting, too, in their own way because the characters and situations linger long after the book is closed. This delightful collection is one that readers will return to again and again. -Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA

Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2002
Gr. 5-8. Gathered from three collections previously published in the U.S., plus one that was not, these 37 short stories will please readers who appreciate subtle atmosphere, the complexities of peer and sibling relationships, and ghosts. Central characters tend to be shy or fearful and are often involved in acts of kindness or compassion (Charlie's big sister helps him to recall a happy outing from a time before their parents' bitter divorce), and more than half of the stories involve supernatural elements, from conventional ghosts to haunted places or things--a heedless businessman makes the nearly-fatal mistake of trying to cut down a corpse guarded by an eldritch spirit; an old woman is haunted by the ghost of herself, as a child; a chance-discovered witch's spell imprisons a lad. The ranks of Pearce's loyal following on this side of the pond (she lives in Cambridge, England) will likely swell.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2002
Bringing together stories from earlier collections and material not previously available in the U.S., Pearce demonstrates her masterful delineation of a child-centered territory she has made particularly her own. The adult world is, in these stories, murky and puzzling; children glean, fossick, eavesdrop, and cobble together their own realities. These thirty-seven stories, published over six decades, are remarkably undated.

(Copyright 2002 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)