Book review by Tracey
This selection was an interesting one to read because not only is the material from an earlier time, it was also written over 140 years ago. Although I am familiar with and fond of several of Charles Dickens’ classics, I cannot say that I was particularly impressed with this one. It was an interesting story and meant to be full of
adventure but I found it a little tame. I may be too jaded for this earlier work. There are a lot of opinions about whether people of today are more stressed out than people of the past because there is too much going on nowadays. I want to believe that people of yesteryear were just as stressed out because we have the ability to expand our stress tolerance and therefore become used to the stress involved in our lives. My point is just that all the adventure in Mr. Dickens’ story didn’t seem all that adventurous to me. I thought it was a good classic selection for eight-year-olds. They are full of imagination and might find the predicaments that the characters face interesting and different. The story is set pre-French and English revolution. It begins with an English banker taking a young woman to France to unite with her father who has been imprisoned her whole life; and whom she has always believed dead. Her father has been freed and is brought to England to heal. The story progressed for several years, passing back and forth across the Channel. The young woman marries and has a child. Her husband is a noble Frenchman who does claim his title, but when he is compelled to return to France to try to save a servant threatened with execution, he is also imprisoned for his bloodline. What happens after and in the end, you must find out yourself. It shouldn’t be a problem, it’s easy enough to read.

Tracey.