Lucie Babbidge's House

by Sylvia Cassedy

Book Overview

Having found a dollhouse full of dolls in the orphanage where she leads an unhappy existence, Lucie creates a secret life for herself. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038071812X
• ISBN13: 9780380718122
• Release Date: April 1993
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.5"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Brilliant!

I cry every time I read this book, yet at the same time I'm cheering on Lucie in her struggle to become the full person she's capable of becoming. This book is unlike any other--its plot structure is intricate but carefully controlled, its characterization of Lucie is subtle but masterful, and the levels of fantasy and reality are remarkable. How did Cassedy ever think this up?

My Favorite Book!

When I first read this book, I must have been in middle school. I don't think I quite understood it at the time, but I did love it even then. Now, I am a junior in college (and an English major!) and this book doesn't cease to amaze me. The levels Cassedy writes with are just amazing. The plot is so intricately woven that it marvels me. I read it again this past summer, and simply cried at the end when Lucie stood up to Miss Pimm. Very reminiscent of Dead Poet's Society, which happens to be my favorite movie. When my daughter is old enough to understand chapter books, this will be one of the first books I read to her.

Underrated masterpiece

This is a challenging book that repays multiple readings. It took me, an adult, two full readings to figure out its various levels of narrative. There are (at least) four: orphaned Lucie's real life (which is awful); her imagined life (which is blissful); her memories of a single day at the seaside with her parents (which are true). And then there is her correspondence with her "personage," the level at which reality, fiction and memory all collide in a strange and eerie way. In order to save her correspondent, the one person in the world who seems to like her, Lucie has to wrench herself away from her immersion in a fantasy life. She has to accept reality and learn to deal with it--the wonderful, creative "voice" she has only used within her own head must finally, in the book's very last paragraph, emerge into the real world she has shied away from for so long. This book is truly brilliant. It is complicated, moving, and utterly original. The author tragically died soon after writing it. Otherwise, I think she would have become one of the great children's writers of the 20th century. Read this book slowly, think carefully, savor it--it's well worth the effort.

A book that makes you think...

This book is absolutely fantastic. Granted, it is very confusing, but that is half the fun of it. I read this for the first time in the mid-90s when I was in either late elementary school or early middle school. It is a fantastic book for kids of all ages. It makes you think and figure out what is real and what is not. This however is not the sort of book one would pick up for a bit of light reading--especially never having read it before. This book is absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend it for anyone.

A wonderful book to sit down and enjoy.

This book was great.It's definetly a book you would enjoy, as are all of Sylvia Cassedy's books. This book is about a girl named Lucie who has no parents, so she must live in a boarding house she hates where everyone teases her because she is pretty much kept kept to herself, and when she does speak or doesdo something, which is rare, it always looks as if she did something stupid or wrong. When her teacher assigns everyone to write to a distinctve person, she chooses someone whose name is on 'her house'. She doesn't thinkthe person will write back, but strangly enough, she does. Lucie doesn't write back, but her actions change the person she wrote to in England's life forever.