Puck of Pook's Hill

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Work of Children's Fantasy
Review: As I am very interested in the historical and mythological nature of Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow), best known for his role as the mischief-making fairy in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, I found these works by Kipling to be invaluable. These two novels are not only an excellent presentation of Puck, but an insight to British history. While considered children's books, I would recommend them to any adult in search of light reading. Truly two wonderful works of literature.

Rating:
Summary: A great, fanciful look at the history of England.
Review: Having trouble getting into English history? Can't stand "A Midsummer Night's Dream?" This book is for you! Una and Dan, two young British children, are playing scenes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on an old hill in their farm one midsummer evening, when they have a guest- Puck himself! They are playing their scenes on Pook's Hill- Pook=Puck, Puck tells them. He soon tells them other things, they are swept back to the early days of England, where they encounter Phoenician gods, Norman invaders, Vikings and other such adventures. If you know someone who is having trouble buckling down and actually _enjoying_ English history, this could be a the key to their gaining pleasure from it. History is actually brought *alive* with this, it's not just a march of dates- it's a gathering of people.

Rating:
Summary: User-Friendly ( British) history.....
Review: I bought this book for my children many years ago - son is now working in e-commerce (a job that I never imagined would exist when he was born!) - and I found it and re-read it with enjoyment some days ago.

Basically, it's about some (upperclass- there weren't any others in books in those days) children who accidentally conjure up "the oldest thing in England" - Puck.

He, in his turn, conjures up for them Normans, Saxons, and, yes, a Jewish moneylender who was the real clout behind the Magna Carta!

I had to revise my ideas about Kipling after reading this - he's a very contradictory character - but most of it reads (very gently) as a sensible argument for tolerance and diversity.

It's also a very good way of bringing history alive...

Rating:
Summary: A timeless classic
Review: I don't know what the previous "reviewer" was injecting but I suggest he (or more probably she) stop while any brain-cells are left. Psychedic! This collection of short stories is one of the finest by a timeless master.

Rating:
Summary: Face to face with English gods, ghosts, trees and history
Review: Kipling's prose has a very special quality - quintissentially English, proud and very robust.

I asked a scholar of English and a Buddhist meditation teacher to recommend a good book for me and she thought briefly before mentioning this.

The poems in it are sometimes dated - the one about queen and country but this is a warm and pleasant read containing many important and esoteric aspects that few care to appreciate.

Ideal to communicate something about being a whole human being and this earthy realm with some of its hidden and ancient forces.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended by a meditation teacher
Review: Kipling's prose has a very special quality - quintissentially English, proud and very robust.

I asked a scholar of English and a Buddhist meditation teacher to recommend a good book for me and she thought briefly before mentioning this.

The poems in it are sometimes dated - the one about queen and country but this is a warm and pleasant read containing many important and esoteric aspects that few care to appreciate.

Ideal to communicate something about being a whole human being and this earthy realm with some of its hidden and ancient forces.

Rating:
Summary: intricate visual composition
Review: This is Kipling "tripling" through British history
and concocting a visually elaborate fantasy for
the imaginatiion. Lovers of psychedelia and the
like will feel at home in this meandering trip of
two children through English history.

The idea is a good one, yet somehow this
midsummer tale inspired by the appearance of
Puck in the children's fairy ring gets tedious.
We start off feeling like we're falling down the
rabbit hole once again with Alice, yet this time we
never land anywhere. We just keep falling and
waiting for this book to end.

This book is interesting as far as it goes, but it
just goes on......
and on
..........and on.
Rating:
Summary: Different look at English history
Review: _Puck of Pook's Hill_ is a set of stories, somewhat linked, about the history of England, built around a frame story involving two young children, Dan and Una, meeting Puck in a meadow near their Sussex home. Puck somehow arranges for a series of historical people, ghosts, I suppose, to come and tell stories of events near their home in the past 2000 years. There are four stories told by Sir Richard Dalyngridge, one of William the Conqueror's men, on the theme of assimilation of the Normans and Saxons into one people: the English. There are three Roman stories, set in 375 AD or so, about a Centurion from the Isle of Wight who holds Hadrian's Wall against the Picts and the Norsemen while Maximus, his general, declares himself Emperor and takes Gaul then heads into Rome (where the real Emperor had him killed, understandably enough). The three other stories deal with the rebuilding of the local church in Henry VII's time, a rebuilding project menaced by smugglers, with the flight of the fairies from England at the time of the Reformation, and with the role of a Jew in forcing John to sign the Magna Carta. (This last an uneasy mixture of anti-Semitism with an apparent attempt to not be anti-semitic.)

_Rewards and Fairies_ presents eleven more stories told by Puck's agency to Dan and Una. We meet some familiar characters again (the church builder, and Richard Dalynrydge), and even some major historical figures: Queen Elizabeth, George Washington, Napoleon. On the whole the stories aren't quite as good as those in _Puck_, though "Marklake Witches" is very good, very moving.

Both books include a number of poems, usually closely associated with the themes of the stories.

These are generally fine stories, but for my taste not up to the level of my favorite Kipling stories, such as "Mrs. Bathurst" and "'They'" and "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" and "The Story of Mohammed Din". Still, the plain craft of the stories is as ever with Kipling remarkable.

Rating:
Summary: Different look at English history
Review: _Puck of Pook's Hill_ is a set of stories, somewhat linked, about the history of England, built around a frame story involving two young children, Dan and Una, meeting Puck in a meadow near their Sussex home. Puck somehow arranges for a series of historical people, ghosts, I suppose, to come and tell stories of events near their home in the past 2000 years. There are four stories told by Sir Richard Dalyngridge, one of William the Conqueror's men, on the theme of assimilation of the Normans and Saxons into one people: the English. There are three Roman stories, set in 375 AD or so, about a Centurion from the Isle of Wight who holds Hadrian's Wall against the Picts and the Norsemen while Maximus, his general, declares himself Emperor and takes Gaul then heads into Rome (where the real Emperor had him killed, understandably enough). The three other stories deal with the rebuilding of the local church in Henry VII's time, a rebuilding project menaced by smugglers, with the flight of the fairies from England at the time of the Reformation, and with the role of a Jew in forcing John to sign the Magna Carta. (This last an uneasy mixture of anti-Semitism with an apparent attempt to not be anti-semitic.)

_Rewards and Fairies_ presents eleven more stories told by Puck's agency to Dan and Una. We meet some familiar characters again (the church builder, and Richard Dalynrydge), and even some major historical figures: Queen Elizabeth, George Washington, Napoleon. On the whole the stories aren't quite as good as those in _Puck_, though "Marklake Witches" is very good, very moving.

Both books include a number of poems, usually closely associated with the themes of the stories.

These are generally fine stories, but for my taste not up to the level of my favorite Kipling stories, such as "Mrs. Bathurst" and "'They'" and "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" and "The Story of Mohammed Din". Still, the plain craft of the stories is as ever with Kipling remarkable.