Afternoon of the Elves

In her ragged clothes and oversized boots, Sarah-Kate is a figure of ridicule at school. However, she has a magic elf village in her neglected back yard, as Hillary discovers one day when Sarah-Kate invites her over to see it. The two girls spend the fall "helping" the elves by making tiny improvements to their village, and Hillary hopes, more than anything, to see an elf for herself, if she is careful and quiet and looks deeply at the natural world as Sarah-Kate instructs. Sarah-Kate can be strange and temperamental, but Hillary is completely taken with this new friendship . . . until the day Sarah-Kate disappears.

There are hints of magic to this story, which is what I think I gravitated toward when I read this as a child (I'm pretty show more certain I read this as a child?), but as an adult it's a darkly bittersweet book about child neglect and a family in need to help. It feels a tiny bit dated now, but there's still the lovely allure of the elf village and the compelling character of Sarah-Kate to give the story its appeal. show less

Sara-Kate is a fifth grader who stayed behind a year and everyone knows she's bad news. But one day, she invites fourth-grader Hillary over to see a village built by elves. Hillary's yard, with its carefully tended garden, backs up to Sara-Kate's, which is a mess of weeds and poison ivy, and Hillary is intrigued by the possibility of elves. Though her parents aren't so sure about it, Hillary and Sara-Kate strike up an unlikely friendship and begin to play together in the yard.

This was an odd sort of story that I think perhaps did not work well for me both on audio and as an adult. It left a tension of whether or not the elves were real or just Sara-Kate's imagination (or, perhaps more insidiously, a lie to get Hillary to play with her). show more Her father is "away on a trip" and her mother doesn't leave the house, which may have seemed like delicious freedom to a child reader and immediately sends up red flags to an adult. The ending is ambiguous in a few ways, both leaving open the possibility of magic and never really resolving Sara-Kate's problems. I think as a result, I would've believed in the magic as a child but I'm left rather unsettled instead. show less

This 1990 Newbery Honor award winner, is hauntingly complex.

Hillary is a child of comfortable middle class who is curious about Sara Kate, the neighbor girl who wears raggedy clothes, sporadically attends school and lives in a dilapidated house.

The story becomes darker as Hillary is enticed to explore Sara Kate's magical elfin village, complete with tiny houses of autumn leaves for roofs, bottle caps used for swimming pools and teeny stones for bitty lawn ornaments.

When the little village becomes an obsession for Hillary, she finds that secrets abound in the larger ramshackle house inhabited by Sara. Forbidden to play next door, Sara disobeys her parents and is increasingly drawn to the magic of the village and her elfin, waif-like show more neighbor whose mother hides behind the darkened windows in the unmagical abode.

This is an excellent tale of societal impressions, of doors that are closed and windows that are barred, of judgment rather than assistance. It is a tale of magic vs. cold, cruel reality. It is a story of friendship, but it is ever so much more than this. When Hillary's eyes are opened she sees things that her comfortable, safe life never dreamed possible.

Highly recommended! show less

Hillary is intrigued when the girl who lives in the house behind her shows her tiny little cottages built of leaves and twigs. Sara-Kate tells her in whispers they were built by elves, and soon has Hillary wrapped into the imaginary world of the elf village. The other kids at school scorn the idea, and talk unkindly about Sara-Kate- her worn clothes, thin appearance and wild temper. Hillary listens uneasily to their warnings to stay away from Sara-Kate, but she wants to go back and see the elf village again, so slowly the two become friends. She's never invited inside Sara-Kate's house though, and never sees any lights on either, not even after dark. When Sara-Kate stops coming to school, Hillary worries something has happened and show more screws up her courage to knock on the door of the silent house. She's shocked to find that some of her friend's stories had a scrap of truth- Sara-Kate is in a rather desperate situation, but Hillary doesn't want to betray her friend by seeking help. She tries to offer some assistance herself, even though this means doing things she knows is wrong- stealing and lying to her parents. Soon an adult steps into the situation though, and then everything changes very quickly.

This story was compelling and in the end, rather sad. It's another that I read in one sitting, quite unable to put it down. While the exact nature of illness in Sara-Kate's household was never revealed, the hints are clear enough. More interesting is how completely Sara-Kate invented the details of the elf world for Hillary, drawing her back day after day with the curiosity and hope the magic would actually be real- all the while hiding her real difficulties. She left a mark on Hillary, too- who always looked more closely at things afterwards, who noticed tiny details others might skip over. Though it was just secondary material, I also liked the bits about her father's garden, the work he did there and how he missed it during the cold winter months. It was nice that Hillary found a way in the end, to conserve the elf village the two girls had worked so painstakingly on. And that she recognized the greatest lesson she learned from their strange friendship- that other people's reality might not be the same as yours, that you have to work hard and put aside your assumptions to truly see things from another's point of view.

from the Dogear Diary show less

This is a book that I remember from childhood. I was so impressed as a child at all that Sara-Kate was able to do (as was Hillary). As a kid I was disappointed that Sara-Kate was rescued, as an adult it was clear that someone needed to help. I'm sorry that there was not an epilogue that would tell us how Sara-Kate is doing. This book was wonderful both times I read it. This is remarkable for a book to work so well in childhood and as an adult.

Nine-year-old Hillary lives with her parents in their nice home and their lovely garden, which her father keeps immaculate. She goes to school and hangs out with her popular friends and lives in a nice little bubble. The neighbor girl, Sara Kate, lives in a run-down house with her mysterious and rarely-seen mother (her father isn't around), wears raggedy clothing and strange old boots to school, and has no friends because all the girls think she's strange. When Sara Kate invites Hillary over to her yard, which is full of trash and briars and weeds, to see the village that the elves created, Hillary accepts, much to her friends' scorn and disapproval. She gradually becomes friends with the cautious and caustic Sara Kate and spends most show more of her time with her in the elf village (which she believes in her heart is real), but is never invited inside the house. After Sara Kate stops coming to school and is never in the yard anymore, Hillary braves walking into the dilapidated house to look for her, and in that moment her bubbled life begins to change. Well written, lovingly crafted, and absolutely heartbreaking. An important read for middle grade kiddos. show less

This is almost or maybe is, a horror story. Hannah, a fourth grade girl is fascinated by the neighbor whose backyard abuts hers, which is wild and trash strewn and harbors an elf village. Sara-Kate the neighbor is a ragged difficult girl repeating 5th grade and shunned by the entire school, but Hannah finds something spending time with her tending the elf-village that her well manicured life does not supply. Short, it ends deliberately inconclusively.