Janet Taylor Lisle

Gave it 4 stars due to childhood nostalgia, growing up I was a bit of a book nerd (still am obviously) but I remembered this book being one of my childhood favorites. Rereading it now, I can see the issues with this book when it came to scene jumping to another scene out of no where but eventually I got use to it,I suppose that was normal for a children/ young adults book during the 1980’s, who knows really. I still enjoyed the story though and I relate a bit to Sara-Kate’s character a bit even as an adult and I felt sorry for her in the end of the book.… (more)

In her ragged clothes and oversized boots, Sarah-Kate is a figure of ridicule at school. However, she has a magic elf village in her neglected back yard, as Hillary discovers one day when Sarah-Kate invites her over to see it. The two girls spend the fall "helping" the elves by making tiny improvements to their village, and Hillary hopes, more than anything, to see an elf for herself, if she is careful and quiet and looks deeply at the natural world as Sarah-Kate instructs. Sarah-Kate can be strange and temperamental, but Hillary is completely taken with this new friendship . . . until the day Sarah-Kate disappears.

There are hints of magic to this story, which is what I think I gravitated toward when I read this as a child (I'm pretty certain I read this as a child?), but as an adult it's a darkly bittersweet book about child neglect and a family in need to help. It feels a tiny bit dated now, but there's still the lovely allure of the elf village and the compelling character of Sarah-Kate to give the story its appeal.… (more)