A little night magic: less well known than its sequel, The Box of Delights, and understandably, if not deservedly so, for this is less an action adventure story and more a series of vignettes. But what episodes they are, weaving fantasy, magic and intrigue and you’ll be rooting for little Kay, a plucky chap, against his mean-spirited and unpleasant keepers. The animal helpers are splendid fellows, particularly Rollicum the Fox, and there’s a curiously muted intro for characters such as Maria and Caroline Louisa, who play such an important role in the next story. Ironically given how the latter ends, this is more of an impressionistic book for the most part, with dream sequences interleaved with the more mundane challenges of Kay’s daytime life - declining French verbs and a divinity lesson (“easy, because it was about Noah’s Ark”) - before it dog legs into an action-packed finale. And from the description of the witch’s boudoir, JM should be entitled to claim royalties or at least credit from JKR. A subtle, disturbing, important work.

I just couldn't get into this one. I found my attention wandering every time I read, and couldn't keep the various characters straight. A bit of a let down.

Probably 3.5. The occasionally-disjointed episodic nature showed its age (the mcguffin was found by a minor character off stage!). Despite that, the parade of strangeness and inventiveness was really fun. Also, the question of what was real and what was not was always blurred, which I approved of. If you weren't reading this aloud, you could probably knock it out in a few hours. Worth a short trip into Kay's early 20th century England.

Some novels catapult you into a world of adventure; some gently slide into an altered mirror on the real world; some bring you into a past you weren't around to experience, and others to a future you won't be around for.

This one is set in the past, and for most readers I think it's also set in the reader's past too. It's about a little boy, and the household he lives in; about his daily concerns, and the magic that surrounds him. About his lost toys, and the imaginative landscape he lives in. Is it real in the book's world? I think you can confidently answer that by the end, although perhaps not before.

The anxieties and fears of a relatively small child, and the thrill of discovery, and of overturning the mundane and soul-crushing rules dispensed by adults took me over as a reader of this book from the first time I read it to the most recent. For me it is a glimpse back into a distant childhood that I really can't consciously remember, but which chimes with enough truth to convince me of the emotional verisimilitude. I'm looking forward to reading this for, to, with my now-5-year-old son because I think he'll love it too, but maybe not yet. It is described often as a children's book, but I think it's equally a book for adults who want to recover some of the magic of childhood - however lacking in magic their own childhood was.

Sometimes it has made me cry. Often it has made me laugh, out loud. There are very few books I have ever enjoyed more.

Unreservedly recommended.

While I did enjoy the imaginative story-telling and vivid descriptions of this book I wasn't so keen on the way it seemed to jump around a little. Now I know that it was part of the story that it would jump from Kay's bedroom to the open seas (or wherever else his adventures led him) but at times I did find it a little disorientating and made the story a little disjointed. Once I got over these bits, I loved Masefield's story-telling style that combines vivid and realistic descriptions with talking animals, pirates, witches, treasure, conspiracies and the good ol' townsfolk gossip. This is certainly an entertaining read and a great book for kids but as an adult I found some of the magic lost (or maybe simply misplaced).

It was really quaint, and it made it really hard for me to get into. I struggled to finish it, but was determined to plough through once I'd gotten 50 pages in.

This book is a book i've loved since i was a kid, and it really should be a four star book. The story is brilliant, although bizarre, and the writing is incredibly enjoyable. Unfortunately, there is some uncomfortable use of racist language and racial stereotypes. That isn't to say it's a bad book or not worth reading, just something to keep in mind.