A Candle in Her Room

5/2011 Oh, how I love this book. It's tightly written, suspenseful without being terribly scary, haunting and utterly infused with a gentle love. It's rooted so deeply in its place that one comes away from it loving Pembrokeshire-as-was. Full of insights into obsession, forgiveness, family and above all love, this story is one of the classics. Scary haunted doll aside, there's just so much in this book that's rewarding. We learn about war, about cruelty and madness, about art and music and dancing, about alienation and being embraced. The contrasts are telling and delicate. That's the best word for it, I think- delicate. It's a book painted on the inside of a fragile glass ball, painted with a brush two hairs wide. Highly recommended, show more even if you think you hate stories about evil dolls.

4/2007 Welsh spookiness, this one with an evil haunted doll, and the 3 generations of women who fall under her malevolent spell. The landscapes and supplemental characters are as lovingly drawn as the protagonists. I have loved this book for what seems like a hundred years, and it rewards every re-reading with something new. show less

The third of Ruth M. Arthur's children's novels to be published in the United States, following upon Dragon Summer (1963) and My Daughter, Nicola (1965), A Candle In Her Room is probably also the author's best-known work. It is certainly one of her most powerful, and - ironically, as it is the last of her later works I have read - now one of my favorites. It is the story of three generations of women whose lives are shaped by the malevolent doll, Dido, whose evil influence creates an eerie atmosphere that readers both young and old will find quite compelling.

When the three Mansell sisters - Melissa, Judith and Briony - come to stay in Wales, in the house their father has inherited in Pembrokeshire, the discovery of an old wooden doll - show more Dido - soon creates trouble amongst them. It is Judith, the least contented of the three, who is most effected, and her actions both before and after Liss's accident, set up the rest of the narrative. Judith's daughter, Dilys, who lives with her mother, her Aunt Liss, and the family servant Emmy Lee at Old Court, also has her brief encounter with Dido, whom she instinctively senses is the recipient of all the attention and care she herself would like from her emotionally distant and abusive parent. Dilys' own daughter, Nina, born in the refugee camps of post-World War II Europe, eventually finds her way to her mother's family home, and like her grandmother, she too becomes ensnared in Dido's spell...

Like The Saracen Lamp, or An Old Magic, A Candle In Her Room is one of Arthur's multi-generational sagas, where her keen sense of place, appreciation for the inner lives of young girls, and understanding of the complex nature of time and memory, is shown to best advantage. This is writing - and storytelling - at its best, and it continues to amaze me that no one has reprinted any of Arthur's work - I can't think of a better candidate! show less

Melissa was sure it was the doll, Dido, who brought evil to the family, not once, but again and again. Three generations were haunted by the strange wooden doll. Each time Dido came to light there was disaster and tragedy. What could be done to overcome the power of the doll? This is a book about many evil, the dimensions of reality, the flow of generations, and surprisingly, the power of love.

I found this book a good example of how styles in children's literature have changed greatly over the years. Anyone writing like this today would be told "show, don't tell." I myself found the constant narration of events a little distancing. And yet the reviews here and on other sites testify that this book was extremely effective in its day in scaring the life out of many readers.
This is the story of three generations of girls who live in a large English house. The most interesting of them is Melissa, the youngest, a Holocaust orphan who has trouble adjusting to a quiet English life. The interplay of feeling between Melissa and the evil doll makes up the most intriguing part of the book, as is the author's willingness to bring in show more modern-day events to underlie the fantasy. show less

Wow. I really hope the public library I grew up with got a nice chunk of change for their copy of this and didn't just have to trash it for wear and tear. I would really love to reread this book, but I don't know that it's $80 worth of love, if you see what I mean.

I read this novel in Elementary school, and it has stayed with me ever since. The story of three generations of girls in one family, each touched by the sorcery of a doll that gets passed down among them. Lives are forever and tragically changed, because of Dido, until the youngest girl is finally able to overcome the curse.

I read this one over and over as a child. Three generations of girls own and are haunted by a doll named Dido. Ruin comes to the family through the doll until one girl breaks the curse.