For Selina and Moira, the young daughters of a well-to-do doctor and his wife, life holds no greater pleasure than the time spent at Platnix, a farm situated some five miles from their home in Hastings. Each summer the children are sent to stay in the country under the care of their Nurse, and find themselves in a dazzling realm of farm animals and activities, flowers and forests, walks and picnics, and days that seem to stretch into eternity...

As with many of Sheila Kaye-Smith's novels, The Children's Summer is first and foremost a love-letter to the Sussex countryside; and it is evident that there is a strong autobiographical aspect to the adventures of Selina and Moira, most particularly with respect to the vivid and active fantasy world that underlies their day-to-day existence and fuels their most enjoyable games. This episodic novel is often listed as a children's book, but it is, rather, a book for people who can remember what it's like to be a child. The sharing and the quarrels, the triumphs and tragedies, the strange rules and even stranger logic of childhood are affectionately evoked.

The Children's Summer is also a glimpse into a bygone era. Written in 1932 but set in the 1890s, we are given a taste of childhood in a time of shocked silences, strict taboos and bewildering restrictions, as Selina and Moira must navigate the maze of mysterious laws that govern their lives. (We can only sympathise with Selina's confusion as she tries to puzzle out why she may talk about the fact that cows give milk, but not that a mother dog has milk.) Also intriguing, and rather unnerving, is how little time these children spend with their parents. It is hardly surprising that these little-glimpsed personages recede in the girls' minds into a vague entity known as "Father-and-Mother", while the long-suffering Nurse is the centre of their universe. As for Selina and Moira themselves, they become entirely real to us - which is to say, they are sometimes sweet and amusing companions, and sometimes little monsters. This is a book that, whether you have children or whether you do not, is likely to make you feel that you made the right choice.

Of course, there were bits and gleams of things that she could remember of the next two months---a hen stealing a piece of cake that Nurse had given her; two doves in a cage, with red berries pushed between the bars for them to eat; Rosie and Maidie Huggett, the farmer's little girls, playing with her in a field that had queer pits and hillocks in it; another little girl called Ivy sitting in the chimney-corner of a very old house, beside a smoky fire of wood. Also she could remember crying when Father came to fetch them home; she had cried with her face hidden in his coat, looking up every now and then to see the hedge go past in a blur of tears, while in her heart was a strange, sad ache that was new...