Lost and found - Rated 
I first read this wonderful little book as a nine year old brimming with imagination.I still have that first copy, split at the seams and yellowing badly, thirty eight years later. The story has stayed with me always. When I attempted to find a copy for my daughter ten years ago, when she was also nine, I was unable to find one and was told it was out of print. I was delighted to find it again on Amazon by accident.
It is testament to the storytelling ability of Uttley-and, despite what other reviewers say-her sensitive,childlike telling of the story that it so vividly memorable. It is a story of imagination rather than harsh reality-and it is magical because of it.
A Glimpse into the Past - Rated
This book captivated me as a child for it's atmosphere steeped in ancientness and the mysteries of the deep countryside.
Susan - the country child - was born and brought up in an old farmhouse in remote Darbyshire, which had been in her family for hundreds of years. All the furniture had been handed down through generations and seemed to speak to her. The routine of life on the farm hadn't changed all that much either. In the summer, Irish workers came to harvest the fields and brought their strange accents and ways, and songs. At Christmas the mummers came and acted out their old and ancient rhymes, as they had always done, since nobody knows when. It's intriguing to read about her family, farming on the steep hillside. I used to long to have that background of tradition and life carrying on the same - far away from modernness.
Susan wasn't a very ordinary girl - she was sensitive to subtle things. She listened to the trees and the wind and the hills. And she was imaginative. The Country Child captures her inner life.
Memorable Story of Girl on a Farm in Victorian England - Rated
I read this book as a 12-year-old Texan living in Edinburgh, and it has stayed with me over a quarter of a century. It's the story of a year in a 9-year old girl's life on her family's farm in Victorian-era England. Little Susan Garland is an only child, highly imaginative, and used to keeping herself entertained. The descriptions of life on the farm, her walks to school, the farm animals, the holidays, are intensely vivid, and it brought late 19th century rural England alive to a 1970's American city girl.
A sample paragraph from the chapter "December":
"Holly decked every picture and ornament. Sprays hung over the bacon and twisted round the hams and herb bunches. The clock carried a crown on his head, and every dish-cover had a little sprig. Susan kept an eye on the lonely forgotten humble things, the jelly moulds and colanders and nutmeg graters, and made them happy with glossy leaves. Everything seemed to speak, to ask for its morsel of greenery, and she tried to leave out nothing."
It's not for everyone: children who want a lot of adventure in their books, or who prefer books with a lot of interaction between characters may find it boring.
A beautifully written account of growing up in Derbyshire - Rated
A beautifully written book, based on Alison Uttley's own childhood, growing up on a farm near Cromford in Derbyshire in the early 1900's. A very gentle read, full of fascinating information about life in another age.
a disappointing book full of affectation - Rated 
The authot tried too much to write in a 'literary"/poetic style. Her attempt to recreate a childish point of view doesn't ring true.Both attempts, at writing in a poetic style and the representation of the childish view seems forced. It provides some information of interest and it has some lovely descriptions, but basically it makes a tiresome reading. Those who are intersted in the subject are advised to read FLORA THOMPSON and the wonderful A CHILD IN THE FOREST by WINIFRED FOLEY. They, unlike Uttley, wrote beautifully.
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