Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Firebird (2003), Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages
Description
What happens when your fantasy world turns real...' Each vacation for the past nine years, cousins Patrick, Ruth, Ellen, Ted, and Laura have played a game they call the "Secret"--and invented, scripted world full of witches, unicorns, a magic ring, court intrigue, and the Dragon King. In the Secret, they can imagine anything into reality, and shape destiny. Then the unbelievable happens: by trick or by chance, they actually find themselves in the Secret Country, their made-up identities now real. The five have arrived at the start of their games, with the Country on the edge of war. What was once exciting and wonderful now looms threateningly before them, and no one is sure how to stop it... or if they will ever get back home. "An intricate sparkling web of intrigue and magic. One of me very favorites."--Patricia C. Wrede, author of Dealing with Dragons… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member delphica
(#55 in the 2008 Book Challenge)
Every October I reread Pamela Dean's Tam Lin because it's such a good Halloween book. But this year, I couldn't find my copy of Tam Lin, I'm sure I have it somewhere, but it hasn't resurfaced since we moved last spring. I'm sure it will eventually. Fortuitously, I
It did remind me of a funny thing about Pamela Dean books -- that they are filled with things that go completely over my head, but seem like the kind of things that will make sense if you read the book again knowing how things turn out ... except they don't. Like Tam Lin is full of Nick and Robin doing things like exchanging meaningful glances, and I know how the book ends and I still have no idea what they were supposed to be so glanciful about. And Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary ... forget it. I have no idea what's going on most of the time. Usually I would be annoyed by this, but in the case of Pamela Dean, it makes me feel confident that she's brighter than I am. So it's good that she's in charge of the story.
Grade: Solid A, although I will have to read the entire trilogy to be sure.
Recommended: Very thoughtful, thorough YA fantasy, and it's serious but not so serious that you wish you were reading a book about grim totalitarian societies.
Every October I reread Pamela Dean's Tam Lin because it's such a good Halloween book. But this year, I couldn't find my copy of Tam Lin, I'm sure I have it somewhere, but it hasn't resurfaced since we moved last spring. I'm sure it will eventually. Fortuitously, I
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was able to read The Secret Country instead. It's the first book in a trilogy about five cousins who play an on-going pretend game about a fantasy kingdom, and it becomes real and the kids are shocked and surprised and there they are. Because it's based on their own game, they have a general sense of how the "plot" is supposed to go, but things don't always work out the way they expect. The kids are fantastic characters, I love how they alternate between being thrilled to be in a magic adventure, and then indignant when they realize there isn't any normal breakfast food.It did remind me of a funny thing about Pamela Dean books -- that they are filled with things that go completely over my head, but seem like the kind of things that will make sense if you read the book again knowing how things turn out ... except they don't. Like Tam Lin is full of Nick and Robin doing things like exchanging meaningful glances, and I know how the book ends and I still have no idea what they were supposed to be so glanciful about. And Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary ... forget it. I have no idea what's going on most of the time. Usually I would be annoyed by this, but in the case of Pamela Dean, it makes me feel confident that she's brighter than I am. So it's good that she's in charge of the story.
Grade: Solid A, although I will have to read the entire trilogy to be sure.
Recommended: Very thoughtful, thorough YA fantasy, and it's serious but not so serious that you wish you were reading a book about grim totalitarian societies.
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LibraryThing member veevoxvoom
For the past summers, cousins Ruth, Patrick, Ted, Ellen, and Laura have played in an imaginary fantasy kingdom called the Secret Country. However, this year things are different. This year they stumble upon swords that take them to the real Secret Country where they are thrown right into the plots
I liked this book a lot. All five cousins are interesting characters, intelligent and literate and the kind of kids I wish I had known growing up. It would have been easy for Dean to create stock characters such as “the loud one”, “the shy one”, “the pretty one”, etc, but she avoids such cliches and fleshes out each cousin in his or her own right. For example, Patrick is insufferable but I like him anyway. I also enjoyed the concept of an imaginary world turning real. How often have I wished for my own Secret Country? I thought Dean handled adeptly the problems and questions of such a transformation. Rather than use it just as a gimmick, she explored its implications.
The Secret Country, as a place, is fairly typical fantasy fare. There’s dragons and unicorns and kings. If you’re looking for extensive, original world-building I don’t think this is the right book for you. But what Dean is good at is creating a sense of mystery. The Secret Country seems banal but there is a touch of the unknown that goes along with it, questions posed but unanswered. It gives you the incentive to read on.
Overall, The Secret Country is an intelligent, compulsively readable fantasy.
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of their imagination. But is it real or is it fake? And how can they avoid the inevitable events that they themselves have created?I liked this book a lot. All five cousins are interesting characters, intelligent and literate and the kind of kids I wish I had known growing up. It would have been easy for Dean to create stock characters such as “the loud one”, “the shy one”, “the pretty one”, etc, but she avoids such cliches and fleshes out each cousin in his or her own right. For example, Patrick is insufferable but I like him anyway. I also enjoyed the concept of an imaginary world turning real. How often have I wished for my own Secret Country? I thought Dean handled adeptly the problems and questions of such a transformation. Rather than use it just as a gimmick, she explored its implications.
The Secret Country, as a place, is fairly typical fantasy fare. There’s dragons and unicorns and kings. If you’re looking for extensive, original world-building I don’t think this is the right book for you. But what Dean is good at is creating a sense of mystery. The Secret Country seems banal but there is a touch of the unknown that goes along with it, questions posed but unanswered. It gives you the incentive to read on.
Overall, The Secret Country is an intelligent, compulsively readable fantasy.
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LibraryThing member matociquala
Another entry in a long and august lineage of stories about young persons transported to magical realms (The Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, The Darwath Trilogy, the Fionavar Tapestry, Dragon Magic, you name it), this is a book written concisely and convincingly from the point of view of
A sentence like They investigated the medicine cabinet, and derived some comfort from the fascinating behavior of hydrogen peroxide. is note-perfect. That's a kid's-eye view of the world.
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children. Its wit is sly, and its characters act like kids. They exhibit kid logic, which is wonderful in an of itself; most young characters do not think like children--magically, distractibly, their logic untrained to conform to approved societal channels.A sentence like They investigated the medicine cabinet, and derived some comfort from the fascinating behavior of hydrogen peroxide. is note-perfect. That's a kid's-eye view of the world.
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LibraryThing member nmhale
When I was younger I read this book, unaware it was a trilogy. I was disappointed and bewildered by the ending, which left the plot completely unresolved, and since this was before the handy help of the Internet was available, unwillingly left it a mystery. Years later, I found the whole trilogy in
The Secret Country begins with five cousins playing a game. They call it the Secret. In the Secret, they created a fantasy world of wizards, unicorns, and court intrigue. They each have a character that is a prince or princess in the land, although they play other parts as need demands. The main point of the game is in acting out important scenes from the story they created, either in the role of their own characters, or assuming the persona of other important persons in the kingdom and the story. Each summer they act out the same major scenes over and over again, seeking to get it just right. They also create alphabets and spells, discuss the history of their secret country, elaborate on the characters and backgrounds of the inhabitants, describe the buildings and different settings for events, and write everything down.
At the beginning of the book, the cousins are enjoying their game for what could be the last time. Ruth, Ellen, and Patrick are moving with their parents to Australia, meaning Ted and Laura will have no way to meet them the next summer to resume their adventure. After their parting, the story jumps forward a year, to the next summer.
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a book store where I worked, and now I am rereading this book so I can read the next two and finally learn the end of the story.The Secret Country begins with five cousins playing a game. They call it the Secret. In the Secret, they created a fantasy world of wizards, unicorns, and court intrigue. They each have a character that is a prince or princess in the land, although they play other parts as need demands. The main point of the game is in acting out important scenes from the story they created, either in the role of their own characters, or assuming the persona of other important persons in the kingdom and the story. Each summer they act out the same major scenes over and over again, seeking to get it just right. They also create alphabets and spells, discuss the history of their secret country, elaborate on the characters and backgrounds of the inhabitants, describe the buildings and different settings for events, and write everything down.
At the beginning of the book, the cousins are enjoying their game for what could be the last time. Ruth, Ellen, and Patrick are moving with their parents to Australia, meaning Ted and Laura will have no way to meet them the next summer to resume their adventure. After their parting, the story jumps forward a year, to the next summer.
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LibraryThing member bragan
This is the first book in a fantasy series from the 1980s, which features a group of children who have invented an elaborate game of magic and intrigue set in a realm called The Secret Country. Although they're quite certain they made the whole thing up, one day they find themselves transported to
I have such mixed feelings about this book. For much of it, I honestly couldn't decide whether I liked it or disliked it. It does have a good premise, and Dean does some interesting things with the idea, including a lot of really thoughtful and clever touches. And there is the core of a decent plot, although it takes about half the book to get going, and doesn't really get very far before this volume is over. (It should, by the way, be noted that this is definitely not a self-contained story. Which is OK; I had a strong suspicion that it wouldn't be. Still, when I am in charge of the world, there is going to be an unbreakable rule stating that any novel that effectively ends in a "to be continued" must say so in clearly visible letters on the front cover.) Also, I don't know whether this was originally marketed for kids or adults, but it does read very much like a book for adults, with none of the clunky, simplistic writing you sometimes get in kids' stories.
But, while it does get better as it goes along, I had a lot of trouble getting into it. The biggest problem, I think, is that it jumps into the fantasy realm entirely too soon. We don't get to really know these characters or get a good sense of what their game or their invented world is like before we're abruptly plunged into it. And, while the characters themselves are a little off-balance at all the things they find surprising and unexpected, at least they knew and understood (and cared about!) things a lot more than I did going in. It honestly felt like the book was missing some important introductory chapters. On top of which, Dean often seems to avoid describing things too closely, or to write in a somewhat subtle and oblique kind of way. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but put these two things together and for far too much of the book, I felt very much like an estranged outsider, looking in at the story through a slightly smudgy glass.
Also, for reasons I can't really put my finger on, I found the Shakespeare-style dialog the fantasy characters use strangely irritating. Also strange and irritating is the fact that, while the kids occasionally complain that those characters are hard to understand, when they're doing their playacting for their game, they somehow manage to declaim the same kind of dialog flawlessly. It's possible, I suppose, that there will turn out to be a plot reason for that, although I kind of doubt it. The fact that these children all seem to be intimately and inexplicably familiar with Shakespeare -- they even quote him a lot -- makes me think that this is a case of the author projecting her own interests a little too enthusiastically onto her characters.
Still. For all my complaints, I am just interested enough in this that I'm planning to continue with the series at some point. (If for no other reason than that I already have a copy of the fourth book. Although I think that's actually a separate, but related story.) I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to get to it, though.
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that world, which sure looks surprisingly real.I have such mixed feelings about this book. For much of it, I honestly couldn't decide whether I liked it or disliked it. It does have a good premise, and Dean does some interesting things with the idea, including a lot of really thoughtful and clever touches. And there is the core of a decent plot, although it takes about half the book to get going, and doesn't really get very far before this volume is over. (It should, by the way, be noted that this is definitely not a self-contained story. Which is OK; I had a strong suspicion that it wouldn't be. Still, when I am in charge of the world, there is going to be an unbreakable rule stating that any novel that effectively ends in a "to be continued" must say so in clearly visible letters on the front cover.) Also, I don't know whether this was originally marketed for kids or adults, but it does read very much like a book for adults, with none of the clunky, simplistic writing you sometimes get in kids' stories.
But, while it does get better as it goes along, I had a lot of trouble getting into it. The biggest problem, I think, is that it jumps into the fantasy realm entirely too soon. We don't get to really know these characters or get a good sense of what their game or their invented world is like before we're abruptly plunged into it. And, while the characters themselves are a little off-balance at all the things they find surprising and unexpected, at least they knew and understood (and cared about!) things a lot more than I did going in. It honestly felt like the book was missing some important introductory chapters. On top of which, Dean often seems to avoid describing things too closely, or to write in a somewhat subtle and oblique kind of way. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but put these two things together and for far too much of the book, I felt very much like an estranged outsider, looking in at the story through a slightly smudgy glass.
Also, for reasons I can't really put my finger on, I found the Shakespeare-style dialog the fantasy characters use strangely irritating. Also strange and irritating is the fact that, while the kids occasionally complain that those characters are hard to understand, when they're doing their playacting for their game, they somehow manage to declaim the same kind of dialog flawlessly. It's possible, I suppose, that there will turn out to be a plot reason for that, although I kind of doubt it. The fact that these children all seem to be intimately and inexplicably familiar with Shakespeare -- they even quote him a lot -- makes me think that this is a case of the author projecting her own interests a little too enthusiastically onto her characters.
Still. For all my complaints, I am just interested enough in this that I'm planning to continue with the series at some point. (If for no other reason than that I already have a copy of the fourth book. Although I think that's actually a separate, but related story.) I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to get to it, though.
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LibraryThing member kcollett
Five children (cousins) find themselves in the imaginary country the history of which they have spent summers enacting for years (at least they thought it was imaginary ...). Involves missing royal children, a dear friend planning treachery, a misguided king, prophetic unicorns.
LibraryThing member amberwitch
The five cousins Ruth, Patrick and Ellen, and Ted and Laurie, are for the first time separated during summer holidays. Unable to play their invented game, the Secret Country, they end up in the Secret Country - or a very close approximation - where they meet up and take on the identities of the
Fun story, I especially liked the way the children were unconvinced that they had actually gone to another world. The fact that these pre high school kids quoted Shakespeare and the like at each other made them very untrustworthy, and made their in other respects very well described and interesting interactions suspicious.
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people they used to play in their game, trying to avoid the troubles of their game from happening.Fun story, I especially liked the way the children were unconvinced that they had actually gone to another world. The fact that these pre high school kids quoted Shakespeare and the like at each other made them very untrustworthy, and made their in other respects very well described and interesting interactions suspicious.
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LibraryThing member dotarvi
The series is relatively light fantasy, with quite a few literary quotes and allusions. A fun read, with a bit more to think about under the surface. My only complaint is the seeming lack of copy-editing. Lots of punctuation errors in this edition.
LibraryThing member francescadefreitas
Wow! This was beautiful, dense, richly textured, and delightful. I would have loved it as a teenager, and I'm sorry I have only just read it for the first time.
I am in terrible twist wanting to know what happens next.
I will have to reread it - I feel that that I missed bits I will be better able
I am in terrible twist wanting to know what happens next.
I will have to reread it - I feel that that I missed bits I will be better able
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to savor when I am not being carried along by story, and I have more time to enjoy the landscape. Show Less
LibraryThing member MeganAndJustin
The series is relatively light fantasy, with quite a few literary quotes and allusions. A fun read, with a bit more to think about under the surface. My only complaint is the seeming lack of copy-editing. Lots of punctuation errors in this edition.
LibraryThing member krisiti
Um. I like a couple of Pamela Dean's other books so much, Dubious Hills and Tam Lin, that my expectations for this were a little high. But it seemed a fairly ordinary fantasy crossover novel. Some nice touches, the bits about the reality of the world, the one cousin's disbelief, the characters -
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but nothing particularly deep. Show Less
LibraryThing member Imshi
The premise of this one is very interesting, but I ended up not finishing it. The writing is pretty good, and the characters interesting enough, but it didn't really draw me in. I feel a lot like maybe there was some giant, important Something I was missing out on, that would have made it very
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compelling - at first I thought that perhaps my book was a misprint and the beginning was left out. It just feels a bit...incomplete. Show Less
LibraryThing member boston22110
I tried my hardest to finish this book, but I felt as if Dean just made up things as she went along. I know it's a fantasy book, but the way she put some of the "facts" of the secret world in there, it seemed so bland, and like she put forth no effort. I got all the way to chapter 8 and had to
I do not recommend this book at all.
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stop, I usually read a book like this in about two hours...it's been two weeks and I just can't get into it.I do not recommend this book at all.
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LibraryThing member calmclam
Smart and fun. Five cousins stumble into a fantasy world almost exactly like the one they've been pretending to inhabit for years--but this world veers dangerously away from their stories even as it seems to push them to the tragic conclusion they created. Chock full of allusions and general
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fourth-wall shenanigans. Show Less
LibraryThing member Silvernfire
Having immensely enjoyed one of Dean's other works, Tam Lin, I was looking forward to reading this, and I was disappointed that I didn't find it all that interesting. I kept waiting for the story to get going, even as I could see that I was past the halfway point of the book and that this was
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probably about as gripping as it was ever going to get. The children already know who the people in the Secret Country are and what's "supposed" to happen because they've been acting it out as a play for years, so there's not much for them to discover about this world, and it felt like the author forgot that the readers wouldn't know all this as well as the children do. This is the first book in a trilogy. In the last chapters, the children begin to really grapple with deeper mysteries—wondering if they can change the story and why they've been able to come here—and in the hopes that these issues will be developed further, I'm going to give the second book a chance at some point. Show Less
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
OMG so awesome. Two siblings and their three cousins fall through a hedge into a magical realm—one they used to pretend was real. Like a non-preachy version of Narnia, but with better characterization and a more intriguing framing device. In fact, each and every character is well-rounded and
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interesting—I go the feeling that any one of them could carry a story of their own. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Locus Award (Nominee — Fantasy Novel — 1986)
Language
Original publication date
1985
Physical description
384 p.; 6.8 inches
ISBN
0142501530 / 9780142501535
Local notes
For the past nine years, cousins Patrick, Ruth, Ellen, Ted, and Laura have played at "The Secret"-a game full of witches, unicorns, a magic ring and court intrigue. In The Secret, they can imagine anything into reality, and shape destiny. Then the unbelievable happens: by trick or by chance, they find themselves in the Secret Country, their made-up identities now real. They have arrived at the start of their game, with the Country on the edge of war.