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Tag: Hilary McKay

Review: Love to Everyone, Hilary McKay

Published 29 Oct 2018 by Gin Jenny

Despite the thing I am going to complain about later on, Hilary McKay is the contemporary children’s author I most wish had been writing when I was a little girl. When I’m sad, the books most likely to cheer me up are her Casson series (the first one is Saffy’s Angel and yes, you should read it immediately). Her latest, Love to Everyone, is an offshoot of her Binny series (which, yes, you should read immediately), the story of three children growing up in Edwardian England and then World War I. (Love to Everyone is called The Skylarks’ War in…

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Binny in Secret, Hilary McKay

Published 29 Jun 2015 by Gin Jenny

Note: I received a copy of Binny in Secret from the publisher for review consideration. Oh frabjous day when Hilary McKay has a new book! Hilary McKay — in case you have not heard me sing her praises in the past — is a British children’s writer who should be much more famous than she is. She writes the kind of old-fashioned children-doing-adventures books you loved as a kid, like Elizabeth Enright’s Melendy Quartet or, more recently, Jeanne Birdsall’s Penderwicks books; but with more carefully-drawn family dynamics than the former and more humor than the latter. Binny in Secret, the follow-up to Binny for Short, sees…

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Review: Binny for Short, Hilary McKay

Published 29 May 2013 by Gin Jenny

Oh I sure do like Hilary McKay, and I will tell you why. I like Hilary McKay because she doesn’t worry about inventing characters who don’t act and feel the way you tend to think likable characters should act and feel. Michael from Saffy’s Angel can’t be bothered with animals. Rose refuses to politely compliment her father’s art if she doesn’t think it’s any good. Binny from Binny for Short does not feel as sad as she knows she should feel about her father dying, even though he was a good father and she loved him. Binny for Short is…

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A discontented blog post about quite a quantity of books

Published 31 May 2010 by Gin Jenny

My sister kindly met me at the public library on Saturday and lent me her library card.  She also gave me a baseball cap, which she assures me I should use any time I visit the public library because it will ward off the attentions of creepy old dudes.  I did not take the baseball cap, nor was I bothered by creepy old dudes, but I mostly frequented the children & YA sections, which maybe is not where the creepy old dudes hang out.  I checked out loads of books, and none of the ones I have read so far…

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Saffy’s Angel and Indigo’s Star, Hilary McKay

Published 16 Aug 2009 by Gin Jenny

Oh I just love Hilary McKay.  She has written these Casson books, which are among the most endearing books I have ever read.  I organize my bookshelves (more or less) by how much I couldn’t do without the books, with the books on the right being the absolutely most essential ones, and then getting less and less essential moving to the left.  And the Casson books, despite being a recent discovery, are on the far right of my children’s books section, along with the likes of The Ordinary Princess and Peter Pan and Indian Captive, which I read when I…

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Forever Rose, Hilary McKay

Published 8 Jan 2008 by Gin Jenny

They are turning into the sort of people I used to call Grown Up and I cannot stop them although I would if I could. I would slow them down anyway. Sometimes I want to shout “Wait for me! Wait for me!” Like I did when I was little and they walked too fast. They always turned back then, however much of a hurry they were in, but I do not think they can turn back now. So I do understand. Oh, excellent book! Even though it made me a little sad, because it is the last in the series,…

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