A Song for Summer

The first Eva Ibbotson books I ever read were her ghost stories such as Dial-A-Ghost and The Great Ghost Rescue. Her humor and sly writing caused me to shout with laughter. Journey to the River Sea and The Star of Kazan took me back to my childhood reading of Noel Streatfield and Frances Hodgson Burnett. I was interested to see her adult fiction showing up in the YA sections of the bookstores. This is a perfect "vacation" book. The story of Ellen and her gift for "life making" was utterly and deliciously satisfying. As the daughter and niece of notorious suffragettes, Ellen could have had a brilliant future as a political leader, an eminent scholar or scientist. But she found true happiness cooking with grandfather's housekeeper and "doing things with her hands." Instead of finishing college she graduated from a school of cooking and household management and found a job as a housekeeper and house mother at a boarding school in Austria. Eccentric teachers, needy children and a handy-man who is actually a world famous composer are living, working and learning together at an "innovative school" housed in the dilapidated Schloss Hallendorf. Ellen's healing presence improves all their lives even as the threat of Nazism and WWII looms. Ibbotson fills the story with rich supporting characters who each deserve a book of their own and takes the storyline in many directions before bringing all the threads back together again at the end. There is a decorous romance along with good food, gardens and music that make the book a curl-up-by-the-fire-with-a-pot-of-tea treat. I read a passage like the following and I'm ready to book a trip to England. "If only it had rained, she thought afterward...but all that weekend the Lake District preened itself, the air as soft as wine, a silken sheen lay on the waters of Crowthorpe Tarn, and when she climbed the hill where the hikers had perished she saw a view to make her catch her breath. In Kendrick's woods the bluebells lay, like a lake; there were kingfishers in the stream..." Ibbotson's low key humor punctuates the storyline. "And then, because they were both Englishwomen and their hearts were somewhat broken, they turned back into the room and put on the kettle and made themselves a cup of tea." I can't make a trip to England or Austria but now that I've finished the book, I feel like I have already been there.

This is one of my all-time favourite books, the kind of comfort-blanket you can turn to when ill, dull or depressed, and almost as good as Jane Austen in that respect. The story is conventional, in the sense that a pretty young girl goes to work as matron in a boarding school and falls in love, but it's the writing, the details and the characters which give it a kind of magic. (Anyone new to Ibbotson's work should also check out her superb children's novels, especially The Star of Kazan, which has a similar heroine). Ellen is the daughter of a trio of fierce feminists, who are horrified when, instead of pursuing a serious career and finishing her degree at Cambridge, she becomes an expert on matters domestic - cooking espeically. Ellen leaves England to work at a progressive boarding school in Austria, where sensitive children are dumped by rich parents and taught to be forks in drama classes. (The author attended Dartington School in the 1930s). Unfortunately, Hitler's rise to power is impingeing even on the demi-paradise of rural Austria, and it turns out the mysterious Marek is rescuing Jews who manage to escape the camps. A composer who wins your heart instantly because he hangs bullies and Nazis out of windows and refuses to let his music be played by the Reich, he falls reluctantly in love with Ellen, but almost loses her thanks to the coming War. Steeped in good jokes and high culture, this is the kind of romantic novel that like puff pastry looks light and feathery but is the most difficult of all to make - and find. The wit is delicious. Ellen's serious aunts in Bloomsbury, puzzled and mortified by their relation's femininity, the absurd idealism of the school, and Ellen's quiet battle with disorder are like Cold COmfort Farm only without the snobbishness and anti-Semitism.

This is the first Ibbotson book I had read and it ties with A Countess Below Stairs as my favorite. The author creates such memorable characters that you can't help wanting the story to go on forever. I loaned this book to a friend and we laugh over the characters like Andromeda, the self regulating baby. I could not put it down. I love to tell my friends about Ibbotson, but it seems like all her books are out of print so you have to get them at libraries. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who likes a good story mixed with a little romance.

If you haven't discovered Eva Ibbotson, give her a try now. For sheer warm, lyrical beauty, I think there are few authors who can match her. Every sentence is a gem. I find myself trying to read slowly because I know how unhappy I'll be when the book is finished. This book--dealing with the rise of the Nazis and the coming of WWII--was inevitably darker than some of Ibbotson's, but she handles the subject matter beautifully.