The Eyes of the Amaryllis
by Natalie Babbitt
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When eleven-year-old Jenny goes to stay with her widowed grandmother who lives by the seaside, she learns a great deal about the nature of love and the ways of the sea.Tags
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Young Jenny comes to stay with her fiercely independent grandmother, who waits for a sea-borne sign from a husband drowned thirty years ago aboard the ship Amaryllis. As Jenny soon discovers, others are also transfixed by the sea's tragedies: an unloved son, a silly woman, a ghost.
The language of The Eyes of the Amaryllis is beautiful, and the story lightly treads the line between small domestic conflicts and such surreal touches as a ship sailing across the bottom of the sea and a man ceaselessly following his steps across the sand.
Jenny cracked eggs -- twelve of them, a whole dozen days of labor for some unknown, dedicated hen -- and beat their slippery whites into a rigid cloud of foam. She had beaten egg whites often before, but now show more she saw the process as yet another transformation. She sifted flour, measured the sugar, watched as Gran folded everything into a batter smooth and pale as thickened cream. Transformations again. And the humble dailiness of these activities only increased the knowledge that, at some undetermined point, her world had slid away a final barrier and allowed that other world to merge with it at last, like the fog moving in from nowhere, into the air she breathed, changing its flavor, giving it a richness it had not had before. Like the scent of the angel-food cake drifting out from the oven to fill the house with promises. Like the head on the parlor table. [93] show less
The language of The Eyes of the Amaryllis is beautiful, and the story lightly treads the line between small domestic conflicts and such surreal touches as a ship sailing across the bottom of the sea and a man ceaselessly following his steps across the sand.
Jenny cracked eggs -- twelve of them, a whole dozen days of labor for some unknown, dedicated hen -- and beat their slippery whites into a rigid cloud of foam. She had beaten egg whites often before, but now show more she saw the process as yet another transformation. She sifted flour, measured the sugar, watched as Gran folded everything into a batter smooth and pale as thickened cream. Transformations again. And the humble dailiness of these activities only increased the knowledge that, at some undetermined point, her world had slid away a final barrier and allowed that other world to merge with it at last, like the fog moving in from nowhere, into the air she breathed, changing its flavor, giving it a richness it had not had before. Like the scent of the angel-food cake drifting out from the oven to fill the house with promises. Like the head on the parlor table. [93] show less
How would you react if you stood on the shore and watched helplessly while a ship carrying a loved one was dashed on the rocks within your sight, and you could do nothing to help? Would you feel closer to your lost loved one by staying in that spot? Or would the place fill you with fear and anger?
Jenny goes to spend time with her widowed grandmother in a home by the sea, and is drawn into Gram's search for a "sign" of her long-lost sea captain husband. Jenny ponders, for the first time, the possibility of things that cannot be explained. This is a gentle tale is of mystery, imagination, and family love -- and I loved it. It's set in an era of sailing ships and horses and buggies, but the themes are timeless.
Jenny goes to spend time with her widowed grandmother in a home by the sea, and is drawn into Gram's search for a "sign" of her long-lost sea captain husband. Jenny ponders, for the first time, the possibility of things that cannot be explained. This is a gentle tale is of mystery, imagination, and family love -- and I loved it. It's set in an era of sailing ships and horses and buggies, but the themes are timeless.
When the brig Amaryllis was swallowed in a hurricane, the captain and all the crew were swallowed, too. For thirty years the captain's widow, Geneva Reade, has waited, certain that her husband will send her a message from the bottom of the sea. But someone else is waiting, too, and watching her, a man called Seward. Into this haunted situation comes Jenny, the widow's granddaughter. The three of them, Gran, Jenny, and Seward, are drawn into a kind of deadly game with one another and with the sea, a game that only the sea knows how to win.
This is yet another Young Adult book that deals with a sensitive subject. After enjoying Tuck Everlasting, I wanted to read more by this author. She did not disappoint!
I liked this breezy read. It was just what I needed, ie a well-written tale with sensitive characters and a plot that was not trite but told with depth of feeling.
This is a story of a grandmother who lost a beloved husband to the sea and remains in her quaint sea shore house waiting for the ocean to give a sign from her long ago love.
This is a story of a granddaughter who visits and is transformed by the events that shaped lives so long ago.
This is a story of a son who, unlike his mother, cannot forgive the sea.
The images are crisp and I could almost feel the roar of the show more waves, and the salty, stormy, tempest torn tumult. show less
I liked this breezy read. It was just what I needed, ie a well-written tale with sensitive characters and a plot that was not trite but told with depth of feeling.
This is a story of a grandmother who lost a beloved husband to the sea and remains in her quaint sea shore house waiting for the ocean to give a sign from her long ago love.
This is a story of a granddaughter who visits and is transformed by the events that shaped lives so long ago.
This is a story of a son who, unlike his mother, cannot forgive the sea.
The images are crisp and I could almost feel the roar of the show more waves, and the salty, stormy, tempest torn tumult. show less
Jenny Reade is sent to Cape Cod to care for her grandmother Geneva, who has broken an ankle. Jenny is completely out of her element. Years earlier her sailor grandfather was lost at sea. Because Jenny's father has never come to terms with losing his father he barely visits his mother, who has remained in their seaside house, and he has never brought Jenny to meet her grandmother. As a result Jenny has never seen the sea.
The story takes on a mystical air when Jenny's true task comes to light. She is not there to care for Geneva while she is off her feet like her father thinks. She has been summoned to watch for her grandfather's ghost ship. Geneva strongly believes that her dead husband will send her a sign from the depths of the ocean, show more so every night Jenny walks the beaches in search of such a sign. show less
The story takes on a mystical air when Jenny's true task comes to light. She is not there to care for Geneva while she is off her feet like her father thinks. She has been summoned to watch for her grandfather's ghost ship. Geneva strongly believes that her dead husband will send her a sign from the depths of the ocean, show more so every night Jenny walks the beaches in search of such a sign. show less
I must correct one other review. To be honest, it made me wonder if the reviewer had actually read the book. It is repeated over and over in the book that the ship broke up on rocks within sight of the location where the story takes place, not hundreds of miles away. It is also repeatedly mentioned that the grandmother and her son actually witnessed the sinking of the ship captained by her husband, which is why the son is so traumatized by the sea.
Also, it was obvious to my 13yo daughter that the sign the grandmother was waiting for was from her husband, a sign that their love carried beyond the grave. The story is, at its heart, a romance. It is a book about love not dying just because people do. How anyone can read the ending of the show more book and not get that is boggling to me.
Personally, I adored this book. It was a delight to find something on my daughter's school reading list that wasn't the typical "Death by Newbery Medal" book. The story was uplifting, and the protagonist had a coming of age that didn't involve being scarred for life. Happy endings in children's 'classics' are a rarity to be savored. show less
Also, it was obvious to my 13yo daughter that the sign the grandmother was waiting for was from her husband, a sign that their love carried beyond the grave. The story is, at its heart, a romance. It is a book about love not dying just because people do. How anyone can read the ending of the show more book and not get that is boggling to me.
Personally, I adored this book. It was a delight to find something on my daughter's school reading list that wasn't the typical "Death by Newbery Medal" book. The story was uplifting, and the protagonist had a coming of age that didn't involve being scarred for life. Happy endings in children's 'classics' are a rarity to be savored. show less
The book was fine, but I had expected better. When a sailor is lost at sea, his wife chooses to wait by the shore for a sign from him, while his son moves away and wants nothing to do with the ocean. His daughter visits her grandmother for the summer and things happen.
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Author Information
32+ Works 25,690 Members
Natalie Babbitt was born Natalie Zane Moore in Dayton, Ohio on July 28, 1932. As a child, she wanted to be an illustrator. She received a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Smith College. She and her husband Sam Babbitt collaborated on a children's book The Forty-Ninth Magician, which was published in 1966. At the urging of her husband and her show more editor, she decided to write her own prose. Her first book as both author and illustrator was The Search for Delicious, which was published in 1969. Her novels included Goody Hall, The Devil's Storybook, Tuck Everlasting, The Eyes of the Amaryllis, Herbert Rowbarge, and The Moon Over High Street. She wrote and illustrated several picture books including Nellie: A Cat on Her Own; Bub, or, The Very Best Thing; and Elsie Times Eight. Kneeknock Rise was named a 1971 Newbery Honor book. In 2013, she won the inaugural E. B. White Award for achievement in children's literature. Tuck Everlasting was adapted as a Disney feature film in 2002 and made its debut as a Broadway musical in 2016. She also illustrated five books for Valerie Worth. She died of lung cancer on October 31, 2016 at the age of 84. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Eyes of the Amaryllis
- Original publication date
- 1977
- People/Characters
- Isabel Cooper Owen; Geneva Reade; Geneva "Jenny" Reade II; George Morgan Reade; Seward (Nicolas Irving)
- Important places
- Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA; Massachusetts, USA
- Related movies
- The Eyes of the Amaryllis (1982 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it.
- Song of Solomon 8:7 - First words
- Listen, all you people lying lazy on the beach, is this what you imagine is the meaning of the sea? (prologue, Seward's warning)
"Well, Mother," said the big man uneasily, turning his hat round and round in his hands. - Quotations
- "Do you believe in things you can't explain?"
Jenny sat silent, considering. No one had ever asked her such a question before. At last she said, "Like things in fairy tales?"
"No, child," said Gran. "I mean - that all t... (show all)he daily things we do, and all the things we can touch and see in this world, are only one part of what's there, and that there's another world around us all the time that's mostly hidden from us." - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But she retied the ribbon that held back her hair, settling its bow more carefully, and smiled all the way to Springfield.
Classifications
- Genres
- Kids, Tween, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PZ7 .B1135 .E — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Juvenile belles lettres
- BISAC
Statistics
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- Reviews
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- Rating
- (3.63)
- Languages
- 5 — Dutch, English, French, German, Italian
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 28
- ASINs
- 8
