Marianne Dreams

When I started reading this book, I thought: "Oh great, a boring story about some girl who's sick in bed. Fun." But, as I got into the book it became incredibly interesting. I started to feel I was Marianne, even though I'm a boy. When she met Mark in her dream as the boy she drew, because her tutor Mrs Chesterfield told her about him, I really felt for him. This book is really and truly gripping, an amazing read. When it ended, I was really sad because I wanted it to go on forever and follow the rest of the adventures and Marianne and Mark. Overall, this book is incredibly enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone.

I absolutely loved this original tale that beautifully captures the world of a sick young girl. Marianne is ten when she develops an illness that confines her to bed for several months. She passes time by drawing a house on paper, and dreams feverishly of the same house while asleep. Her adventures in the house with a boy named Marc become more frightening as her illness worsens. In the dreams, Catherine Storr touches on the dream-like fears of the children while in real life they deal with more substantial fears, such as illness and lonliness. Sometimes Marianne's fears turn into nightmares, which I found frightening but still appropriate for children. This is not the case for the movie, Paperhouse, which was way too much for pre-teens. All in all, I'd say that this is a book that crosses all age bounderies and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a simple but facinating story.

I stumbled over the movie, "Paperhouse" in a horror section in a video store. I fell in love with the movie and then I was deteremined to find the book it was based on. The book was nowhere locally and not online either. Not less than a year later (Dec of '93) I got the opportunity to go to England and while there, I searched book stores in London in the pouring rain dragging my reletives around. We got soaked in the rain but I found it in only a couple of hours. I was very surprised that this book was even considered a children's novel. I found it VERY dark and eerie. Don't know of many children who would really get into this book. I would recommend it to older teens and adults. I actually found the book to be darker and eerier than the movie. If you can get your hands on this book, it is worth every penny!

Catherine Storr wrote this book in 1958 and amazingly it is as good a read now as it probably was then. A little girl Marianne is confined to bed after a serious illness and to wile away time she takes to drawing with a pencil she finds in what used to be her Great-Grandmother's workbasket. To her surprise she dreams about her drawings and they come to life in an extra-ordinary way that she struggles to understand. Jumping between the real world and that of her dreams Marianne slowly becomes conscious that world she is creating is making itself felt in the waking world and affecting not only herself but another sick child called Mark who she has never met but who is fast becoming an important part of her life. This is a surprisingly suspenseful book, with Marianne a tender ten-year-old acquiring almost survivalist skills in a bid to avoid the terrible stones she drew in fit of pique when angry with Mark. Realizing that Mark is in danger she sets out to save him, and aided only by trusty pencil and sketchpad, she ventures forth with Mark from the confines of the magically drawn house to a tower and finally to the safety of the sea. Adults and older children alike will enjoy this book, which puts modern children's classics to shame.

Along with "A Wrinkle in Time" this is one of the most intriguing and haunting "childrens'" books I've ever read.I discovered it after seeing the 1989 movie "Paperhouse," which was closely based on the book. The movie, superb in its own right, interestingly inverts some of the major themes in Paperhouse, the result being that, together, they form a wonderful counterpoint to one another and are richly rewarding for anyone interested in the power of dreams, the isolation often felt by children, and the reality of the unseen world beyond our conscious senses.After seeing the movie I searched for nearly 10 years for the book, finally finding a ragged copy in a London bookstore using bibliofind.com. If you have trouble locating it, keep trying. There is a new edition published in England, so searching there will probably yield the best results.