The Secret World of Polly Flint

Where can a small child find comfort when she is forced to live with an over-efficient, unimaginative aunt, not knowing when her injured father and anxious mother will return? Polly has a leaning towards seeing things, an affinity for dreams and fantasy, and discovers a strange family and even stranger world to console her. In a park near Aunt Em's there is a lake and a wood, a world that Polly can easily turn into a magic land in her mind. This time imagination becomes 'reality'. She becomes involved with the time gypsies, and her own misery is forgotten as she endeavours to help them back to their own time. This is a superb story, highly praised by all the children who have tried it. Helen Creswell has created a world where there reader cam worry, fuss and plot with Polly. It is not an intangible, fairy world, for Polly's problems are real, substantial, partly familiar: a cross and ragged granny. a baby with nowhere to sleep, a homeless dog and a mysterious man from whom all children must keep well away. When the time gypsies are safely home Polly's father comes home too. Polly is secure again, 'secure in her dreams'. A deeply involving, satisfying book. Offer it to all top primary and middle school children. Read aloud too. A TV version is promised soon.