Product Description

The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge's best-loved book for young readers, tells the story of Maria, an orphan who goes to live in the old manor-house of Moonacre. There, she discovers a world of delightful people and enchanted creatures. But the Kingdom of Moonacre has fallen under a dark cloud, and only a new Moon Princess can restore its ancient glory. The Little White Horse won the Carnegie Award for being the outstanding children's book of 1946. An instant classic, it influenced The Chronicles of Narnia and was J. K. Rowling's favorite childhood book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50806 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-17
• Released on: 2008-04-17
• Binding: Paperback
• 222 pages

Review
By the author of A City of Bells and Green Dolphin Street, an elegantly written book with the thoughtful, polished air of a Jane Austin gone exquisite. Though the prose gives pleasure, I doubt that many young readers will stay with more than a few pages of the slow-moving, dreamy tale that floats between reality and illusion. The opening chapters which introduce Maria Merryweather, a 13 year old orphaned heiress, her kindly intelligent governess, Jane Heliotrope, Sir Merryweather, the owner of the somewhat haunted Moonacre Manor, and Wiggins, an ordinary, shallow but beautiful spaniel - these promise a real story. The delicate humor, the enchanting landscape, the unreal light continue however to give these qualities and nothing more. There are frail enchantments, incredibly prescient animals, for a rather affected plot with a high, antique finish. The mysterious little white horse of Maria's imaginings, is as ethereal as the rest of the cast, and the feudal, manorial air, the fabulous repasts prepared by mysterious servants and animals, all become rather cloying. (Kirkus Reviews)

From the Publisher
7 1.5-hour cassettes

About the Author
ELIZABETH GOUDGE was a popular adult novelist who also wrote a number of well-loved children's fantasies. She was awarded the Libary Association's Carnegie Medal for The Little White Horse in 1946.

Customer Reviews

I loved the book! But the women bashing was horrible...
I read the book, and simply loved it. It was a well written book with a good book, and good historical accuracy.

Except, I hated it when the Old Parson adonishes Maria FOR BEING CURIOUS and she cries and 'instantly repents'. It annoyed me to no end about the female bashing in this book.

I'm not a feminist. I have no problems with today's way of treating females. But this is ridiculous.

If you count that out, it's a perfect book, and I can't wait to see the movie.

I Absolutely Adored Putting This Book Down
As a lover of children's books, I can sadly say that this is one of the worst I've ever read. Is it really meant to be for children? I've never read anything quite so dull. I tried to force my way through the last half, but I simply couldn't do it. I'm writing a review because half of a book is plenty to start getting interesting, and because so many darned people gave it five stars (?!).

The heroine, Maria, is conceited, restrained, and obsessed with perfecting herself to the satisfaction of her elders. She can ride her horse about and ooh and aah over pink-iced fairy cakes all she wants--she's still the most unchildlike child I've ever encountered.

Of course, it is set in the Victorian era, which is, you know, full of dull. Ordinarily, when a children's book is set in this period, the child does everything they can to escape the monotony of their life, and something amazing and exciting happens as a result. Maria instead embraces the stiff-backed compliments and frilly clothes, and not even a lion-like dog, panther-like cat, imaginary friend who is real, unicorn, and age-old family feud can save this book.

My goodness, I hope I didn't just make it sound exciting.

The Little White Horse contains a horrible moral about curbing curiosity, though curiosity is one of the chief reasons that babies and young children learn so readily. This moral is pounded into the reader's head, reappearing over again more than halfway into the book, despite the pastor already having chastised Maria over her "female curiosity". It certainly seems to only be a sin in women, making it an even more perverse lesson. Patience might have been a better choice for keeping Maria from investigating too far and maintaining the mystery of the novel. (And by the way, the mystery of her family's past and several other things are only withheld because Maria decides not to ask questions, which makes the whole mystery rather annoying, since she could solve it if she actually tried.)

We all know that The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe has Christian symbolism. It is fairly subtle though, and I never noticed it when I was little. The Little White Horse, however, bashes you over the head with a cross and hurls you into the pews. I never approve of this sort of thing, since if one is already a Christian they can't be converted, and if they aren't this dry children's novel certainly won't convert them (not appropriate to attempt in a children's book anyway; children hate having lessons hurled at them). It becomes a repetitive theme that further takes away from any potential magic, mystery or adventure.

Another nice theme is woman-hating. The men in the book despise women and instead of being insulted by this, Maria and Miss Heliotrope do their best to please and are relieved to find themselves exceptions. I'm not a feminist by any means, but come on!

Now about the writing style...it's not so great. I would say that the majority of this book is spent on what everyone's wearing and eating. Almost nothing jumped out of the page at me or filled my mind with sights, sounds, or images. There is so very much description of shrubs and ruffles and hills and cream that midway through I was nearly immune to any more of it, even if it happened to be rather nice. By the middle of the book it felt as though my senses had been dulled and I read dialogue with equal interest to dress descriptions. It was to such an extent that evil men stealing sheep during a thunderstorm failed to spark my interest. In fact that was where I gave up, as I suddenly realized that other than Maria saving a hare from a trap, that was the ONLY event involving any kind of danger or adventure within the entire first 130+ pages!

So there you have it. The main character is horribly dull and over-admired, the writing style is passive and wordy, the morals are annoying, and nothing happens for a very, very long time (and I suspect after the sheep-thieving there was another long stretch of nothing). One of the WORST children's stories I've ever read. In the beginning it reminded me of The Princess & The Goblin, and that is a wonderful story that I can wholeheartedly recommend instead. For something COMPLETELY different, I just finished Summer of the Monkeys and it's a ton of fun.

Delightful, magical little story - won the Carnegie Medal for children's literature in 1946
I was drawn to reading 'The Little White Horse' when I first saw J. K. Rowling's comments about the book ...'I absolutely adored 'The Little White Horse. It had a cracking plot... It was scary and romantic in parts and had a feisty heroine.' So, having not read the book as a child I've come to it as an adult and thoroughly enjoyed it!

The year is 1842 and Maria Merryweather is a petite plain orphaned girl with silvery-grey eyes, straight reddish hair and a thin pale face. She has had to leave the London that she knows, selling her father's house to pay debts, and is off to live with her nearest relative at the Manor of Moonacre in the West Country, taking with her her much-loved, if stern, governess and their canine companion Wiggins.

Maria takes to her cousin Sir Benjamin Merryweather immediately, and falls in love with Moonacre with very little effort. She soon meets the friendly villagers from nearby Silverydew, is re-acquainted with an old childhood friend, Robin, and learns of an ancient story about the foundation of Moonacre which will have a great effect on her future... Soon Maria longs to be the one to restore tranquility and peace to her much-loved Moonacre Valley. Throughout it all, more than anything, Maria longs for another glimpse of the little white horse she first spotted on her arrival at Moonacre one wintry moonlit night...

This is a lovely heart-warming story of innocence, friendship, discovery, magic and ultimately good fighting evil. A pure delight.

Look out for the new film based on the novel, which is set to appear sometime in 2008 - filming apparently started in October '07. The film is due to be called 'The Secret of Moonacre'.