When magic in summer, the world seems to come alive with enchantment. The warm sunrays dance upon the earth, casting a golden glow upon everything they touch. The vibrant green foliage sways gently, as if in a waltz with the breeze. Flowers burst forth in a riot of colors, dotting the landscape with their beauty. Bees buzz happily from blossom to blossom, collecting nectar to make their sweet honey. Birds sing their melodious tunes, filling the air with their joyful melodies.

The Magic Summer

An adventurous summer with four children visiting their eccentric great aunt in the Irish countryside.

Genres ChildrensFictionMiddle GradeClassicsIrelandJuvenileChildrens Classics

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Noel Streatfeild

Mary Noel Streatfeild, known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author best known and loved for her children's books, including Ballet Shoes and Circus Shoes. She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.

During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.

In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.

According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.

In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.

Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.

Birds sing their melodious tunes, filling the air with their joyful melodies. Summer is a season of endless possibilities, and magic seems to be woven into its very fabric. The days are longer, allowing for more time to explore, create, and dream.

Ratings & Reviews

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Four children are sent from London to live for the summer with an eccentric poetry quoting Aunt in a rural part of Ireland. They are left to fend for themselves and in the process find friendship and enjoyment in day to day tasks. The children find that there are things to gain from their self sufficient life, and a mystery unfolds. The freedom they enjoyed and the descriptions of endless summer days on the beach were lovely. Our favourite Noel Streatfeild so far. Beautiful illustrations by Edward Ardizzone.

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In just a couple of generations, English schoolchildren have become soft. John, Susan, Roger, and Titty would be appalled to learn that their grandchildren are duffers - or worse! What to do!? Ship them off to Ireland and let good old Great-aunt Dymphna sort them out, not by really instructing them, but more by letting them free-range it as much as possible. The kids develop and mature in more ways than one. I still think they'd probably drown if left on their own for real, but it's a start. The original British title The Growing Summer is much better than the American (The Magic Summer), as it is growing that is the essence of the story.

This has quite a bit in common with Ransome, such as The Picts & the Martyrs or Not Welcome at All, but there are definite differences. The interactions with adults are very interesting. At one point there are some rather harsh words, which I don't think we get in Ransome. His adults seem to be more sympathetic at all times (I suppose the initial conflict with Captain Flint might be an exception).

Happily, there weren't a lot of references that reveal the 1960s time period (only once there is the briefest mention of Beatles songs). The absent parents are frequently mentioned, and we get regular updates. This didn't really thrill me, but I suppose it is more realistic for the time.

I don't know about Stephan. I wasn't crazy about the bit of intrigue that was included - I'd be perfectly happy to have a lovely tale of a simple summer in Ireland where there is no sense of time (the book is dedicated to Elizabeth Enright, a marvelous summer writer), but I suppose it served a purpose in presenting a character to show that the Gareths weren't all that bad, after all. I also feel that maybe this subplot was there as a nod to Streatfeild's earlier Shoes tales of child stars. The Gareths' sometimes hostile treatment of Stephan is another example of behavior that goes past the Ransome level.

I loved the literary allusions and how vital they were to how the kids grow. I've collected all of them (below). Aunt Dymphna is a marvelous character (in all senses of that word), and I was so glad to see that the Gareths appreciated her in the end.

Edward Ardizzone, as always, does a fine job of the illustrations.

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Poems, rhymes, plays, and songs quoted or mentioned:

Edward Lear: The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo (p.74,75,76,188,189,219,258,261,268,269)
William Allingham: The Fairies (p.102,103,219,258,269)
Doctor Foster Went to Gloucester (p.117)
Thomas Rymer (p.118)
Edward Lear: The Jumblies (p.132,206,226)
Georgie Porgie (p.133)
Samuel Goodrich: Higgledy-Piggledy Pop (p.134)
Pop Goes the Weasel (p.141)
Robert Browning: Rabbi Ben Ezra (p.141)
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary (p.141)
William Shakespeare: Ariel's Song (p.141)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Mask (p.142)
Sing a Song of Sixpence (p.142)
Robert Louis Stevenson: Sing Me a Song of a Lad That Is Gone (p.142)
Goosey Goosey Gander (p.142)
Arthur O'Shaughnessy: Ode (p.142)
Robert Louis Stevenson: Romance (p.142,169,253,258,268)
Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark (p.166, 167,172,173)
Cecil F. Alexander: All Things Bright and Beautiful (p.177,223)
William Shakespeare: Song: Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I (p.178)
Monday's Child Is Fair of Face (p.186)
Rudyard Kipling: Our Fathers of Old (p.187,197,253)
Rudyard Kipling: Cold Iron (p.194,197)
Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (p.196)
Lewis Carroll: The Voice of the Lobster (p.200,227)
Edward Lear: The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (p.203,205)
G. K. Chesteron: The Song of Quoodle (p.221)
How Many Miles to Babylon? (p.222)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Sweet and Low (p.223,224,258,269)
Hilaire Belloc: The Early Morning (p.228)
William Shakespeare: The Tempest, Act II (p.254)
Barber, Barber, Shave a Pig (p.261)
William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 5 (p.269)

Also referenced are two books:
Isabella Beeton: Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management: (p.188,189,192,249,250,251)
Sir Walter Scott: Ivanhoe (p.188,189,207)

A little while ago, I wrote a list about Why I Love Noel Streatfeild and concluded that I should follow my own advice and read more of her. The Growing Summer was a book that I longed for but which was never in the bookshop. Aged ten, I even tried ordering it but alas it was out of print. My interest was tantalised when I heard a Radio 4 adaptation in my early teens. However, it was only when I finally resorted to Amazon (the shame!) that I finally managed to track down a second-hand copy. I have been looking for this book for almost two decades. Thank goodness it was good.

The four Gareth children are Alex, Penny, Robin and Naomi. Their life is predictably middle class and respectable until one day their father announces that he is going off into the middle East to further his scientific research into germs and epidemics. After a brief panic about being abandoned by both parents, the children settle down with the vaguely-realised intention to ‘be good’ and to ‘help Mother’. However events get rather complicated when word comes that Daddy has been taken terribly ill and that Mummy needs to go to be with him. With all of their mother’s family in New Zealand and the majority of their father’s family having died in the Blitz, there is only one option about where the children can go with their mother away – Great-Aunt Dymphna. A figure of mystery, it was she who took in Daddy after his parents’ death and the children have only the vaguest notions of what she is like – she disapproved of any medicines she had not grown herself, she would disappear for days at a time leaving Daddy to catch and eat his own food, she had escaped from war-torn France with only a hold-all. Right from the get-go, the children are apprehensive.

Posted off to Ireland with all their clothes in order to be prepared for any occasion, the Gareths arrive in the airport to find – horrors – there is nobody to collect them. When Aunt Dymphna finally does show her face, she looks ‘more like a bird’ than a person, wearing an enormous black cape and not behaving in any way that the children expect an aunt to behave. Added to all this, she drives like a maniac, shouting ‘Road Hog’ at anyone who gets in her way and disobeying any conceivable kind of highway code. The children have the vague hope that upon arrival at Aunt Dymphna’s home Reenmore that the situation will regulate itself but the house is gloomy and decrepit and the wing the Aunt is putting them up in hasn’t been lived in for years. When asked whether there are any toys, Aunt Dymphna is mystified, there is all the Irish countryside to explore! When the Gareths ask who is going to cook for them, she is again surprised by their obtuseness – they will of course! For four cosseted children, the situation is absolutely ghastly. The bath water comes out brown, they are reduced to a diet of boiled eggs until Penny learns how to cook and then to cap it all, the annoying boy who was on the plane with them turns up claiming to be a Communist refugee who requires sanctuary from his persecutors. It’s all a bit much to cope with.

I loved this book – it feels like a real change of pace for Streatfeild though. I was fascinated by how there is a real sense of a generational shift. Ballet Shoes seems to be taking place in the 1930s – there is a reference to how one of the Fossil sisters’ shows finishes early due to the death of the King which meant that nobody really felt like going to the theatre. This means it must be happening around 1935. Theatre Shoes takes the action to mid-war with the Forbes children having no mother and a father who is Missing In Action. While the Fossils dealt with poverty, the Forbes are struggling with rationing. Flash forward to The Painted Garden, and the war is just over but the Winters children find America a massive culture shock after the privations to which Britain has become accustomed. We hear about what the Fossils have been doing in the background – Pauline is making it big in Hollywood, Posy’s ballet company had to evacuate to America after the fall of Czechoslovakia and Petrova flew planes but all three sisters felt guilty that they could not do more to help with the war and so donated money for scholarships to the Forbes children. For the Gareths children however, growing up in the 1960s, this is all the stuff of myth and legend – when they come across the hold-all that Aunt Dymphna used when fleeing France, they comment that it ought to be in a museum. Streatfeild appears to be highlighting how these post-war children just don’t know they’re born.

Aunt Dymphna is a glorious character – I think it was her that kept up my determination to track down a copy of this book even though it took quite so long. She communes with the seagulls which appear to give her up to date information about Daddy’s condition – information which is generally repeated word for word several hours later by Mummy’s telegrams. She eschews tea and most food that the Gareths believe to be in any way normal. She shouts out to dogs where she is going since she feels that they will stop barking once they know her intended destination and it appears to always work. While taking the children to church, she becomes very cross if the sermon goes over fifteen minutes and if the vicar so offends, she gets up and walks out. It is not hard to see how a television series was developed around her – I myself would have loved to hear more about her, indeed I was disappointed she spent so much time offstage. She could be infuriatingly obtuse, speaking often via the verse of Edward Lear and showing an unprecedented lack of interest in the children’s concerns, but then she does remember word for word the text on the postcard the children find in her hold-all, the message from her brother inviting her to stay dated only weeks before the bomb that killed him.

There is a good deal of moaning that goes on about Aunt Dymphna’s relaxed attitudes, her infuriating habit of answering any query in the form of verse and her overall laissez-faire approach to guardianship – the children are quite convinced that they are being poorly treated. Naomi kicks up a fuss and throws tantrums, Robin moans, Penny frets and worries and Alex pretends to be in charge. Yet, one by one, they come to see things differently. One of Aunt Dymphna’s verses refer to having heard Naomi’s moaning voice constantly since she arrived in her home and Naomi is startled. She has grown up knowing that she is the ‘pretty one’ of the family and because of this feels that people should try to please her – but she quietly decides that she does not want to be known as a moaner. Alex agrees to Aunt Dymphna that Penny’s worrying is excessive but Aunt Dymphna replies that the worrying would cease if the poor girl actually got some help. Although Alex had believed that he had been doing his bit by catching fish for dinner, he had resolutely left domestic chores to Penny as the girl and had complained about being expected to make his bed or pick up after himself. He quickly sees how he has been wrong. There is a neat parallel to all of this though in that as the children realise what a pain they have been, they are simultaneously having to live with Stephan, the spoilt ‘Communist refugee’ who has set up home in one of the spare bedrooms and is not only refusing to leave but is also casting scorn on all of the food which is put in front of him. Each of the Gareths tell Stephan archly that he is ‘horrid’ and ‘dreadfully rude’ even while glumly doing their apparent duty by him and shielding him from their aunt but we can see how Aunt Dymphna’s attitudes towards the Gareths reflect their feelings toward Stephan. Things reach a show-down when Stephan is discovered and the children are scolded furiously by Oona who tells them angrily that they have been incredibly foolish, and ungrateful to their aunt who never wanted them to stay but has done her best by them all the same.

It is quite a thing for a child these days to be told that they are a burden. Streatfeild is capturing the rise of the our universal praise culture – where a child has to be told that they are wonderful no matter how they behave, that their work is brilliant no matter how hap-hazardly or how lazily they have set about it, that they need do nothing, never try, that life will just come together for them. This is an attitude that was never supported by any of Streatfeild’s fiction – if you want something in her books, you have to work for it. It is not that the author is suggesting that the children deserve mistreatment, far from it, but rather that one ought to appreciate it when somebody goes out of their way for you. Streatfeild points out explicitly in The Growing Summer that it does Penny no harm to learn to cook, for Alex to tidy up or fish, for Naomi to learn to entertain herself, for Robin to go in the fishing-boat in the dark. They all grew up a bit and nobody died (not even Daddy Gareth – unsurprisingly, he turns out to be fine). They even came to realise that they were not so very special, recognising as they got ready for departure that the most likely thing was that their new friends in the area would likely forget them quickly, only dim recollections remaining and no names. As they bid their once despised aunt farewell, there is a real sense of poignancy as she vanishes in the airport just as abruptly as she appeared, and we sense the tragedy that they will most likely never see her again. The Growing Summer is a novel about carping the diem, about being the best possible version of yourself and about remembering to be grateful – as such, it is a book well worth sharing, highly recommended!

My Magic Summer: With the Moon Maidens

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Summer of '94 and Connor Whelan is excited to spend the last three months before his senior year with his uncle in Texas. Aware this trip is due to his mom's cancer treatments, he still hopes this will be a season of magic.

He gets his wish when he encounters three magical women one night. Claiming to be from the moon itself, bewitching Iluna, flighty Eiru, and motherly Cassiopeia are about to make Connor's last summer of childhood one to remember.

However, his interest in local girl Laura puts him in hot water with her tough boyfriend. His fascination with Iluna also confuses him. Will the moon maidens' lessons about joy, wonder, and hope get him through this crazy summer?

Summer of '94 and Connor Whelan is excited to spend the last three months before his senior year with his uncle in Texas. Aware this trip is due to his mom's cancer treatments, he still hopes this will be a season of magic.

He gets his wish when he encounters three magical women one night. Claiming to be from the moon itself, bewitching Iluna, flighty Eiru, and motherly Cassiopeia are about to make Connor's last summer of childhood one to remember.

However, his interest in local girl Laura puts him in hot water with her tough boyfriend. His fascination with Iluna also confuses him. Will the moon maidens' lessons about joy, wonder, and hope get him through this crazy summer?

When a magic in summer

Nov 1, 2023 — In-Store Play

The world becomes a playground, and the imagination takes flight. Children run barefoot through grassy fields, their laughter echoing through the air. They chase butterflies, trying to capture a bit of the whimsy that seems to float on their delicate wings. Summer nights are equally enchanting. The sky becomes a canvas, painted with millions of twinkling stars. Fireflies light up the darkness, their tiny bodies resembling miniature lanterns. The sound of crickets fills the night, creating a soothing symphony that lulls one to sleep. Looking up at the night sky, it's easy to believe in magic and the possibility of something greater than ourselves. The magic of summer extends beyond the natural world. It can be found in the laughter shared with loved ones as you gather around a crackling bonfire to roast marshmallows and tell stories late into the night. It can be felt in the warm embrace of a friend, as you soak up the sun's rays on a sandy beach. It can be seen in the smile of a stranger as you pass them by on a hiking trail, both of you appreciating the beauty of the world around you. In the midst of this magical season, it's important to take a moment to appreciate and savor it all. To embrace the joy, the wonder, and the sense of possibility that summer brings. We must cherish these moments and hold onto them tightly, for they are fleeting. The magic of summer reminds us to live fully, to find joy in the simplest of pleasures, and to be present in each passing moment. So, when magic in summer, let yourself be carried away by its spell. Allow yourself to be enchanted by the beauty of nature, the warmth of the sun, and the laughter of loved ones. Embrace the sense of wonder that summer brings and let it fill your heart with joy. For in these enchanted days, anything is possible, and dreams have a way of coming true..

Reviews for "The Magic of Summer: Rekindling Your Sense of Wonder"

1. Sandra - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with "When a Magic in Summer". The story felt disjointed and hard to follow, jumping between different characters and time periods without much explanation. The writing style was also very flowery and over-dramatic, which made it hard for me to engage with the characters and their emotions. Overall, I found it to be a confusing and unsatisfying read.

2. Mark - 1 star - I couldn't get into "When a Magic in Summer" at all. The plot was weak and predictable, and the characters felt one-dimensional and uninteresting. The dialogue was also clunky and unnatural, making it difficult to believe in the interactions between the characters. It just didn't live up to the hype for me, and I was left feeling bored and uninvested in the story.

3. Emily - 2 stars - I struggled to finish "When a Magic in Summer". The pacing was incredibly slow, with little action or progression throughout the book. The descriptive passages were overly long and often irrelevant to the overall plot, making it hard for me to stay engaged. The lack of character development also left me feeling indifferent towards the protagonists, as I never felt a connection or cared about what happened to them. Overall, I found it to be a lackluster and uneventful read.

4. John - 3 stars - While "When a Magic in Summer" had some interesting concepts, I found the execution to be lacking. The plot had potential, but it felt disjointed and lacking in depth. The writing style was also overly verbose and convoluted, making it difficult to understand and follow the story. There were moments of intrigue, but they were overshadowed by the overall confusion and lack of cohesiveness. It had its moments, but ultimately left me feeling underwhelmed.

Embracing the Enchantment: How to Experience Summer's Magic