The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

Title: The Little White Horse

Originally published: 1946
Dates read: 9/17/18-9/21/18; 10/1/18-10/10/18
Back to the Classics category: Classic with a Color in the Title
Find out more about the Back to the Classics 2018 reading challenge HERE.
Read my other book reviews from the challenge HERE.

Author: Elizabeth Goudge
In April 1900, Elizabeth Goudge was born in a small town in England and died in 1984. Goudge was an only child and not well educated. When she was 11, her family moved. She was sent to Boarding School in Hampshire, which coincided with the outbreak of the First World War.  She then went to art school to be a teacher. In 1923, her family moved again and her mother had a nervous breakdown. It was at this time, she wrote three plays, but a publisher told her to go away and write a novel. She continued to write and as her hard work began to pay off, she could afford to travel around Europe. She then had her first nervous breakdown and fought with mental illness for the rest of her life. In 1939, her father suffered a bad fall and died suddenly. The second World War broke out and Elizabeth took care of her mother until she passed in 1951.

Goudge was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1945. By 1959, Goudge had produced 25 titles and sold nearly ten million copies. She is perhaps best known for her novel The Little White Horse (1946), which won the Carnegie Medal. Elizabeth’s arthritis limited her mobility and she became reclusive. She developed high blood pressure, hardening arteries, and lowered concentration - which increased her depression. In 1978, she had a bad fall, a pin was inserted in her shattered leg, and had several unsuccessful operations. By 1984, she fell twice more, discovered her backbone was disintegrating, and developed cataracts making her work virtually impossible. She died at home peacefully a few weeks before her 84th birthday. (Source, Source)

Description on back of book:
When orphaned young Maria Merryweather arrives at Moonacre Manor, she feels as if she's entered Paradise. Her new guardian, her uncle Sir Benjamin, is kind and funny; the Manor itself feels like home right away; and every person and animal she meets is like an old friend. But there is something incredibly sad beneath all of this beauty and comfort - a tragedy that happened years ago, shadowing Moonacre Manor and the town around it - and Maria is determined to learn about it, change it, and give her own life story a happy ending. But what can one solitary girl do?

Favorite quotes:
"I have never taken weather into consideration in my training. In my opinion, to much attention to weather makes for instability of character."

"Old Parson does not mind animals inside the church. He says that dogs and cats and horses are much the best-behaved of God's children, much better behaved, as a general rule, than men and women, and he can never see why they should be kept out of God's house."

"There's nothing like protecting someone more frightened than one is oneself to make one feel as brave as a lion."

"I supposed we couldn't expect to succeed at the first try. But there has to be a first try, and now we've had it, and it's behind us."

Review:
This was such a wonderful book - I wish I had read it as a child! I loved the incredible descriptions and quickly got lost in the story. It was magical - and yet the animals didn't speak, which I appreciate. It really was a modern fairy tale. The characters were all a lot of fun and the mystery slowly unfolded itself. There is love, adventure, sadness, anger, reconciliation, and humor.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was the positive view of the church and Old Parson. Many books these days are skeptical about church/religion, especially Christianity. It was a breath of fresh air to read a description of a church service that I couldn't help but think, "that's how churches are supposed to be!" There are so many wonderful and/or humorous scenes about the church and Old Parson (like the one under Favorite quotes),  but here's one snippet:

"Maria had never heard anyone pray like this Old Parson, and the way that he did it made her tremble all over with awe and joy. For he talked to God as if he were not only up in heaven, but standing beside him in the pulpit. And not only standing beside him but beside every man, woman, and child in the church - God came alive for Maria as he prayed, and she was so excited and so happy that she could hardly draw her breath."

I really enjoyed the people, animals, and mystery in this story.  Since this is a children's book, some things were predictable and the dangerous scenes were easily overcome without much effort. If anything, I wish the book was a bit more complicated and had more intense dangerous/suspenseful scenes. Overall, though, this truly is a wonderful magical fairy tale.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Elizabeth Goudge have the last words:

"Sometimes a story that one hears starts off one doing things that one would not have had to do if one had not heard it."