A lovely story, simply yet eloquently written with a beautiful message.
We all have walls in our lives - but the Lord always provides a door. 9780739364499 3.5
“None of us is perfect. It is better to have crooked legs than a crooked spirit. We can only do the best we can with what we have. That, after all, is the measure of success: what we do with what we have. Come, let us go on.” (PG. 76)
YA— John Newbery Medal— 1949
Initially, it was a hard read trying to get into the speech of the characters. Thee, thou, thy is not in my interest. Then, the story just got so much better. It is full of wise little tidbits and so encouraging to the person reading it. I really don’t think kids will be into this but it really is a good read with a little bit of history in the background. (Welsh and English wars)
You can feel the love the author has for kids, as in the quote on top. Robin has become inflicted with sickness and can’t move his legs. His father and mother sent him away to train as a knight. Now the dream is knocked out of him after this strange illness and the plague taking its citizens. Feeling like a disappointment to his family he comes into a depression. Luckily, a monk saves him and teaches him the art of using his hands and his mind, hence “door in the wall.”
Sir Peter kept Robin’s hand in his and spoke directly to him. “Each of us has his place in the world,” he said. If we cannot serve in one way, there is always another. If we do what we are able, a door always opens to something else.” (PG. 71)
I was hooked by the end of it. The author was born in 1889 and wrote more than 25 children’s books. So sad I just got to meet her but I will rectify this. 9780739364499 I love a story with a wealth of meaning behind its words. This one is exemplary. Within, young Robyn’s father has left for the Scottish wars, his mother has gone to wait on the ailing queen, and Robyn awaits John-the-Fletcher who will escort him to the manor of Sir Peter where Robyn will serve as squire. But Robyn takes ill and loses the use of his legs, John-the-Fletcher never arrives, and the servants flee for fear of the plague that rages through London.
A monk named Brother Luke carries Robyn to the abbey where he cares for him. “Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it,” the monk encourages him. But who would look for such a thing in illness?
At the abbey, Robyn recovers, but his legs remain crippled. “We must teach thy hands to be skillful in many ways, and we must teach thy mind to go about whether thy legs will carry thee or no,” Brother Luke tells Robyn. “For reading is another door in the wall, dost understand, my son?”
Robyn grows strong, and eventually receives word from his father to continue to Sir Peter’s, which he does with the aid of the monk. It is there, when danger threatens the castle, that Robyn truly comes to understand Brother Luke’s words. For it is there he finds his own door in the wall.
Written in 1949 and capturing the Newbery the following year, The Door in the Wall has become an American classic. Its sweet story and positive message are still as relevant today as they were sixty years ago. It is chuck full of gentle lessons, like: “Each of us has his place in the world…If we cannot serve in one way, there is always another.” Or, “None of us is perfect. It is better to have crooked legs than a crooked spirit. We can only do the best we can with what we have.” And, “He had found out that the harder it was to do something, the more comfortable he felt after he had done it.”
The Door in the Wall also provides a textbook of fascinating medieval context. Ms. deAngeli had a special talent for detail that adds such richness to her settings. And her formal language style aids this illusion of stepping back in time. She doesn’t apologize for tough vocabulary, either. This makes the book more challenging to read, but sixth graders should handle it with ease.
9780739364499 Straightforward children's fiction about Medieval life, resilience, and finding ways to cope with loss and overcoming fears. The motto of the book is in the title: if you walk along a wall long enough, you will find a door - to a new life.
The young main character must learn to find new doors to open when he has to face the bitter fact that he is unable to use his legs. His future as a knight is in jeopardy. A kind monk helps him to understand that using his mind and learning to read will carry him even further than his legs ever could.
What I learned from reading this with my children:
Compassion, determination, education and flexibility are great values, and to build a better future for ourselves, we must always remember to put enough doors into our walls to give children with disadvantages a fair chance to find them! 9780739364499 A child’s story set in the 14th century, about a boy who is separated from his parents by wars and plagues and who then loses the use of his legs, leaving him alone in the world and helpless. I’m a little embarrassed to admit how much it moved me, much like the way the boy is too embarrassed to let himself cry when he is finally reunited with his mother in the end. What I love most is the way there is always a friendly monk or two nearby, to feed the boy when he is hungry, or to bathe him, or to carry the boy whenever he needs to go up some stairs. Wouldn’t it be grand to live in a world where someone is always right there to help us when we need them. 9780739364499
I had to read this and do a book report on it in 5th grade (approximately). I remember it being the most dry, torturous book I'd read up to that point. I wonder what I'd think of it now? 9780739364499 A lovely book. I will leave my earlier review. :-)
This book is delightful, wonderful, enchanting... I could go on! I finished reading it to my sons, age 5 and 7, today and we all gave a happy, contented sigh at the end. My 7 yo said he could read it again right away. :-) What a lovely book. 9780739364499 How... have I never read this before? IT'S ABSOLUTELY DARLING. Also, my edition is gorgeous. (and the illustrations ! !! !!!)
(yeth, I am becoming very cover-judgy, also yeth literally everything I've read this year has been from my library haul so I CAN AFFORD TO BE.) 9780739364499 So as a story in and of itself and as a tale set in Mediaeval England, I very much have enjoyed Marguerite de Angeli's 1949 The Door in the Wall and also very much celebrate and am in absolute agreement with de Angeli being awarded the 1950 Newbery Award for The Door in the Wall.
Because yes, I have most definitely totally and sweetly enjoyed reading (both as an older adult and equally with regard to my so-called inner child) about how in The Door in the Wall main protagonist Robin slowly but surely comes to accept himself, how he comes to notice (and is taught by Brother Luke and others) that even with his physical challenges and his resulting frustrations (and yes, I am also rather glad that even though The Door in the Wall is set during the time when the Black Death Death, when the bubonic plague is first raging in England, Robin's health issues in fact have nothing at all to do with the plague), there are actually multiple opportunities available to him, to Robin, aside from knighthood, and indeed that I in particular appreciate how there is much adventure, excitement and a mostly wonderful and realistic sense of time and place presented by Marguerite de Angeli and also and especially so that de Angeli has in The Door in the Wall Robin show his mettle without treasure seeking, without religious fantasy but instead by Robin warning of an attack and a siege by the Welsh. And even though part of me, even though my older adult self does feel a bit that Marguerite de Angeli's words, that her storyline for The Door in the Wall could maybe do with a trifle more textual substance, for a middle grade novel, for a shorter (and delightfully illustrated) story that is clearly geared towards child readers from about the age of nine to twelve, The Door in the Wall features (in my humble opinion) just enough verbal information and details to lastingly retain reading interest without the danger of getting potentially bogged down with too much superfluous details, with over descriptiveness and the like (something which I might of course very well enjoy as an adult but which a younger reader with a shorter attention span might possibly find a bit distracting and dragging).
Therefore and for me, The Door in the Wall is a solid and enjoyable four star novel and also one which I might even consider rereading in the near future. And indeed, the only reason why my rating for Marguerite de Angeli's text is not yet five stars is the following. For although I am for the most part totally textually enamoured of Marguerite de Angeli's sense of time and place, I am also left thinking that there probably needs to be a bit more with regard to historical specifics being added (and in particular near the beginning of The Door in the Wall, where the Black Death is alluded to and that it is just starting to become a serious pandemic). And thus, I for one am going to assume that The Door in the Wall is likely set in 1348 even though there are no dates ever mentioned (which was the first year the bubonic plague became an actual and dangerous issue in England) and that this would of course also mean that The Door in the Wall is taking place during the reign of King Edward III (and while I as an adult reader reader who has taken multiple courses on British history both at school and at university am easily enough able to make these connections from what is textually presented by Marguerite de Angeli, I do wonder if the intended audience, if ten or twelve year old readers would be able to figure out the likely calendar year when The Door in the Wall takes place and that the king of England at that tie was Edward III). 9780739364499 I just picked this up to reread for the first time since childhood, and found it didn't live up to my memories (for one thing, I found it quite stilted this time around) but I'm keeping it at four stars for how much I liked it at the time. Back then, I thought the book was lovely and wise. I also thought that pretty much anything with a Medieval setting was inherently good, and even this time around I enjoyed the parts about the monastery, and learning to read, whittle and swim against a background of the daily offices of monastic life. That was the part I remembered from childhood; the exciting part in the second half about the besieged castle I'd completely forgotten. The book is also an interesting take on disability, 9780739364499
Ever since he can remember, Robin, son of Sir John de Bureford, has been told what is expected of him as the son of a nobleman. He must learn the ways of knighthood. But Robin's destiny is changed in one stroke when he falls ill and loses the use of his legs. Fearing a plague, his servants abandon him and Robin is left alone. A monk named Brother Luke rescues Robin and takes him to the hospice of St. Mark's, where he is taught woodcarving and-much harder-patience and strength. Says Brother Luke, Thou has only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it.
Robin soon enough learns what Brother Luke means. And when the great castle of Lindsay is in danger, it is Robin, who cannot mount a horse and ride to battle, who saves the townspeople and discovers there is more than one way to serve his king. The Door in the Wall