Lively, Penelope Books

In Search of a Homeland: The Story of the Aeneid

Penelope Lively

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Frances Lincoln Children's Books Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $11.39

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Authors & Illustrators, A-Z -> ( L ) -> Lively, Penelope

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Inspired by the ancient masterpiece The Aeneid, by Roman poet Virgil, modern-day author Penelope Lively has penned a poignant retelling of the arduous journeys of Trojan warrior Aeneas. Doubtful young readers will be amazed at how readable and downright gripping these old tales really are, from the devastating ruse the Greeks wreak on the city of Troy, to the tempestuous seas the escaping Trojans cross and recross, to the violent battles they fight, all in the name of finding their true homeland.

Illustrator Ian Andrew's evocative, scratchy illustrations set the stage for award-winning author Penelope Lively's text, which captures all the terrible excitement and bittersweet emotions of these ancient travails and mythical encounters with supernatural beasts. Moved by this retelling, readers will surely want to seek out other epic classics, perhaps Rosemary Sutcliff's masterful retellings of Homer's Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad and The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of the Odyssey. (Ages 9 and older) --Emilie Coulter

Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived : A Memoir

Penelope Lively

List Price: $20.00 By: Harpercollins Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Superb Illustration of the Third Culture Phenomena 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 13 people found this review helpful.

While it becomes quickly evident how excellent is Penelope Lively's memory, reading this memoir opens up all kinds of doors.

In the book there is a wonderful theme of how we think of the past, and what the past means to us. There is also more than a glimpse into the lifestyles of 20th century British colonial elite. As a child, Lively could straddle different realms, different cultures, and this is the fascinating heart of the book.

She grew up with ruling class privilege in British-occupied Egypt, and yet she had a child's access to local village life. She had a devoted governess, but the grown Penelope realizes how little they shared of each other. There are many fascinating parallels of home and country, such as the weight of a distant, somewhat cold mother/land.

Nowadays, there's a lot written about the phenomenon of the Third Culture Kid. Usually, and to speak very simplistically, this refers to American kids who grow up overseas and cannot feel any true attachment to the US, but who are not visibly connected to the land where they spent so much of their childhood. In the worst scenario, these people can end up with severe feelings of rootlessness, and with a sense of never quite belonging. Lively beautifully and sensitively writes of this lack of connection.

Aside from Oleander, Jacaranda being a wonderful story of returning, it is a comforting read for those who are affected by Third Culture Phenomena. I urge ALL EXPATRIATE parents to obtain and read this book! My third culture daughter read it at age 15, and I would recommend it to others in her age group and cultural situation.

Also great by Penelope Lively: Moon Tiger (Fiction).

Editorial Review:

The Booker Prize-winning author of Cleopatra's Sister recalls growing up in English in Egypt in the thirties and forties and examines the influence Egyptian culture had on her as a child of a colonial society.

The Ghost of Thomas Kempe

Penelope Lively

Amazon Price: $10.75 List Price: $10.52 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks By: Heinemann Educational Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $2.49

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Ghost Of Thomas Kempe 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Harrison family move into their new house and James wants the attic turned into his bedroom but whilst they are cleaning out the attic they find a bottle with a message in and they accidentally smash it and what they don't know is that a spirit is released.After this there is lots of messages being left around.No one believed james and no one ever did until things got too bad and they all wish they had believed him. It is written by Penelope Lively who is a very affective author.

Chris's Review 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is a very good story of which the Harrison family move from their old house to a new Countryside Cottage but they dont knpw that a 300 year old bloke is trying to haunt them. The family recieved letters and messages as if the GHOST was trying to haunt them.The atmospheric detail and Archaic language used,was to a good effect. The book was quite good but the ending was not very well thought out!

Editorial Review:

One of a series of top-quality fiction for schools, this novel won the 1973 Carnegie Medal. A 17th-century sorcerer materalizes and tries to make a modern boy his apprentice, and this troublesome spirit has to be exorcised from James's ancient cottage.

A House Inside Out

Penelope Lively

List Price: $12.95 By: Dutton Juvenile Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Finding Extraordinary Wonders in an Ordinary House 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

At 54 Pavillion Road, home of the Dixon family, great adventurers lie underfoot and hidden in the walls. The deftly-drawn characters of Willy the earnest but short-sighted terrier, Nat the intrepid Pill Bug, his friend the spider, and Sam the show-off mouse and his long-suffering wife, Doris, their all-too human foibles and mishaps made me and my ten year old laugh out loud. Each chapter tells a different, but beguiling tale about one of the inhabitants of the inside-out house; major dramas of which the Dixons remain blithely unaware. Ostensibly a child's book, but one which relies refreshingly on everyday life for its subject and teaches no greater moral than, aren't we all silly, it makes for delightful inter-generational reading.

Editorial Review:

Relates the adventures of a variety of creatures--mice, spiders, pill bugs--that live, seen and unseen, in the nooks and crannies of an ordinary house.

Dragon Trouble (Yellow Bananas)

Penelope Lively

Amazon Price: $4.95 List Price: $4.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Crabtree Publishing Company Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $1.79

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A wonderful read-aloud 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This made a wonderful read-aloud to my 4.5 year old son. The colorful pictures and fast-paced story were a perfect combination. Will definitely buy and put with our favorite early chapter books for him to read himself one day!

A real generation-bridger 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

A wonderful, imaginative and entertaining story, set in the West Country of the UK. Beautifully written, the characters (particularly the older ones) speak in language that they really would use, which my grand-daughter found a huge entertainment in itself.
Trendy it isn't.

Editorial Review:

Yellow Bananas are captivating chapter books designed to help young readers make the transition from storybooks to text-based books. The next level up from Blue Bananas, each book features short chapters, engaging full-color illustrations, and a strong story about interesting characters. As their reading abilities develop, kids will want to make the jump from Blue to Yellow Bananas! Peter wants to give his grandfather something special for his birthday--something different, something unusual. But when the ideal present hatches into dragons, Peter and his grandfather are in for more trouble than they could ever imagine.

One, Two, Three, Jump!

Penelope Lively

List Price: $16.00 By: Margaret K. McElderry Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $0.78

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Delicious, Delightful & Darned Good 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a wonderful book for children of all ages. My daughter adores the colorful pages. This is the book she must hear every night at bedtime. Often, one reading will not do. I recommend it to parents who are tired of the blah books normally written for children. This is a stunner.

Editorial Review:

"I want to be somewhere else", thinks a young frog who is sitting between two stones. he sets off to explore, under the watchful eye of a kindly dragonfly. But there are all sorts of dangers lurking in the garden--from a boy's big feet to a curious cat to a very hungry bird. The frog has to one, two, three . . . JUMP! out of some sticky situations before he finds the perfect spot to play in. Full color.

The Whispering Knights (Lythway Large Print Children's Series)

Penelope Lively

List Price: $16.95 By: Chivers North America Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $22.31

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

My favourite story 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a wonderful story of three children, who inadvertantly bring Morgan le Fay back into power. Based in Oxfordshire, it utilises a famous stone circle, the Whispering Knights.

Written in the typical Lively easy to read style, it's a great children's story with a good mix of magic and modern sensibilities. It has long been one of my favourites and still gets a re-read even though I'm 20 years past the demographic.

Thirty five years later, it's still a beautiful book 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

At the ripe old age of 46 I've come across this book, squirreled amongst the group of items I've kept since childhood. I last read it when I was 12, in 1972, when PL had written only one other book. I can understand why this is the only book I chose to keep from my childhood. Beautiful imagery and a powerful use of words that I found fascinating even then. The children seem a little 'old fashioned' now, but the story itself holds firm. My 8 year old son is loving it. I only hope the now fragile and yellow pages will last the distance.

Editorial Review:

Three children concoct a witch's brew that conjures up Morgan Le Fay in the guise of a local tycoon's wife who immediately stirs up trouble in the village.

Good Night, Sleep Tight

Penelope Lively

List Price: $13.95 By: Candlewick Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $0.01

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Editorial Review:

Before putting her doll and all her stuffed animals to bed for the night, a little girl accompanies them on an exciting adventure.

Astercote

Penelope Lively

Amazon Price: $32.95 List Price: $32.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Chivers Audio Books Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A very detailed book 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is a very well-written book. It is kind of long but it kept my interest. It has alot of details that are very well written. The story line is good and interesting. This is a very good book.

Editorial Review:

A brother and sister discover that nearby woods not only hide the site of a medieval village but also a well-kept and potentially dangerous secret.

The Voyage of Qv66 (Lythway Large Print Children's Series)

Penelope Lively

List Price: $13.95 By: Chivers North America Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $8.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fantastic! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is - indubitably - the most enjoyable, intriguing, humourous, atmospheric, inventive and affecting novel for children yet written.

Interesting view of a future world 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

In an England abandoned by People, covered in water and inhabitated only by scavenging animals, a small group of friends set out on a journey. Pal the dog, Ned the horse, Freda the cow, Pansy the kitten, Offa the pigeon, and Stanley, who doesn't know what he is. In order to find out his true idenity, the group takes a boat, the QV66, and begins the long and difficult journey from Carlisle to London Zoo. For there, they are sure, they will find the answer. Wit and wordplay abound, and the animals are delightfully ignorant of the human items they find, and their goofy explainations of them are often very funny. A fun, lighthearted read.

Editorial Review:

People have evacuated the Earth and fled to Mars, leaving behind rubbish and animals. Five animal friends must strike off on a hazardous journey from the north of England to London with a curious animal named Stanley. Together they must find out what Stanley is and why he is so special.