An Episode of Sparrows

“It would be impossible for a reader not to feel better from reading the story…her rich understanding of human nature, her humor and her beautiful prose inevitably leave one aglow.” —Chicago Tribune 

“A gentle, poignant story, poetically conceived with a fairy godmother ending. Recommended for all…” —Library Journal 

“I’m amazed now at the depth and detail of this short novel. It’s a masterpiece of construction and utterly, realistically convincing—though it has a fairytale element too. Rumer Godden’s books are admired for many qualities…but I think her greatest strength is her accurate, unsentimental portrayal of children…. An Episode of Sparrows was the first book that made me cry when I was ten. I cried all over again at this recent reading of the story—and I closed the book with the same sense of total satisfaction.” —Jacqueline Wilson, former Children’s Laureate, United Kingdom
 
“[An] extraordinarily gifted writer who manages to infuse her novels with a special magic of their own.”—Boston Herald
 
“May well prove the book of the year for those who are not ashamed to weep over the printed page…author Godden here tries her deft writing hand at landscaping a child’s heart.”—Time
 
“It is a sentimental tale, well told, with an unlikely and entirely satisfactory ending.”—The New Yorker
 
“It has a dizzying cast of characters, radiating out from the inhabitants of a once-genteel London residential square to the residents of the teeming commercial streets beyond.”—The Horn Book Magazine

“Rumer Godden’s work needs no praise. Her place in the literary world is high and secure. But perhaps one may say that in none of her books are her profound understanding and light touch more skillfully combined than in this poignant, tender, and subtly strong Episode of Sparrows.”—Christian Science Monitor