Last week's featured work of art in the Middle Grade Gallery came from L.M. Boston's The Children of Green Knowe (1955; this edition, Harcourt Young Classics, 2002). No one guessed.  I hope this is a reflection of how many people visit books together and not of how many people read Lucy Boston, because the Green Knowe Chronicles are wonderful. Old-fashioned, yes, but in the very best sense of the word. There's an ancient manor house, an almost equally ancient great-grandmother, and the ghosts of the three children in the painting--Toby, Alexander, and Linnet.

The painting of the Oldknow children (which can be glimpsed in the background of Brett Helquist's cover illustration for this edition) is at the center of the second book in the chronicles, Treasure of Green Knowe. It's gone to an exhibition in London and may have to be sold.  Worst of all, its ghosts (but not all of them) have gone with it.  I think I like it even better than the first.