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topdragon's review against another edition
4.0
I have this thing about not having read every single book that is on my shelves at home so I couldn't very likely say no to this one. It was part of my kid's homeschooling program years ago as recommended by the curriculum we were following...so it must be good right?
While often disappointed in what others say young people must read to further their exposure to literature, this time I wasn't. I found this novel to be a fairly straight forward tale of adventure and fantasy with a young female protagonist, Ellen, who proves to be both courageous and quite resourceful. The book does start with a pretty scary series of events including the burning down of Ellen's house, (along with her family inside), and her narrow escapes from a mysterious man with some sort of unknown dastardly agenda. So I don't recommend this one for squeamish children.
Despite the dangerous circumstances, Ellen uses her brain to determine the best path and the final resolution is satisfactory. One key part of the ending was a cheat though as we find out at the end that Ellen got to see a key clue to which the rest of us weren’t privy. Despite that, I enjoyed the novel and am happy to have read it.
While often disappointed in what others say young people must read to further their exposure to literature, this time I wasn't. I found this novel to be a fairly straight forward tale of adventure and fantasy with a young female protagonist, Ellen, who proves to be both courageous and quite resourceful. The book does start with a pretty scary series of events including the burning down of Ellen's house, (along with her family inside), and her narrow escapes from a mysterious man with some sort of unknown dastardly agenda. So I don't recommend this one for squeamish children.
Despite the dangerous circumstances, Ellen uses her brain to determine the best path and the final resolution is satisfactory. One key part of the ending was a cheat though as we find out at the end that Ellen got to see a key clue to which the rest of us weren’t privy. Despite that, I enjoyed the novel and am happy to have read it.
jem_of_the_brew's review against another edition
1.0
This book gave me nightmares when I was eleven.
user613's review against another edition
3.0
The story is crazy and a bit unbelievable at times. However, this is coming from an adult perspective and not from the recommended age group (8-12). I don’t think they’d notice or think to question half of the points that bothered me. My main complaint for that age would be that at times it was a bit slow. It was written a while ago, so that could explain it.
When I was young I remember enjoying Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH quite a bit. I think I would’ve enjoyed this too.
It’s Ellen’s 10th birthday and she wakes up and finds a crown on her bed. Naturally, this just confirms what she’d always knows, and what only her aunt really ever believed and didn’t only pretend to believe – that she’s a queen.
The worst part is that there are two endings offered which give two different reasons for the crown being there.
A bunch of impossible, unexplainable occurrences happen to Ellen.
Her house burns down and no none but her, who went outside before, survive.
Ellen decides to go to her aunt; she vaguely knows where she lives. She’s new to the neighborhood and doesn’t know anyone to ask for help – and decides to brave it on her own, I guess?
She goes to the gas-station to get a map to help her get to her aunt (she plans on hitchhiking) and then a man there tells her he lives right nearby and will take her. She’s so relieved. (But doesn’t think twice about taking a ride with a stranger who just happens to be going to right where she needs? At ten, she should know better.) And on the phone he speaks to someone and it sounds suspicious and says something about when they get where they’re going and she naturally assumes he meant when she gets where he’s taking her. Because, they’re not going to the same place.
The whole time she’s thinking extremely maturely for a ten-year-old and illogically and way too trustingly at the same time.
Then, she finds a green-hood in his glove-compartment, like the robber who shot the police-man and store owner was wearing, and she jumps out and he just misses her sleeve. In the forest, which she runs into, he looks for her, but she manages to hide, and he steps on her ankle, which hurts, but while the bone was supposed to have cracked it hurts surprisingly little and only bothers next when convenient. She finds a boy named Otto in the forest who happens to live there with his mother.
Only, she discovers it’s not his mother after all but a woman who found him in the forest when he was young. And, a man comes to the house in the middle of the night, presumably looking for Ellen, and Otto’s “mother” shoots outside to show him not to come, but is afraid he’ll come back so sends Ellen away Otto. They plan on walking to Ellen’s aunt.
He’s way more mature than your average eight year old, if not for the mention of his age, it would all work, but the whole time, I kept on remembering his age and thinking that something didn’t quite match. He can throw a weapon with precision from miles away, trap and cook animals and find their way in the forest (besides for at noon because the sun’s overhead so they have to stop and eat. At night they managed to sometimes continue on their journey, though.)
On the way they manage to evade another man who’s looking for them, with a black outfit with a green stripe. And, they come to a man’s house – Mr. Carter, who helps them move on and promises to watch out for those men (he, logically on his part, doesn’t believe them, until a man comes (same outfit) and asks after them and then he believes them and reassures them he’ll watch out for him for a few days).
As Otto and Ellen continue to Ellen’s aunt, they come across a crevice in the valley which they have to cross. They decide to climb down it, but it seems, numerous times, from what happens next, that they’re not really in it. That part was a bit confusing for me. Did they really climb down it, or did they plan on going down? Or did they go down and climb up on the other side? I wasn’t sure. It seemed like they climbed down, but why would they do that? Especially because further on Ellen follows it and sees it closes up (which was when I wondered if they went down in the first place, and guessed not, because she was seeing this from on top).
They’re delayed there because Ellen jumps down on the ankle she hurt before. And suddenly now she can’t move it. And they’re running out of food.
Then, Otto, who went to scout ahead (remember, Ellen can barely walk), says there’s a castle ahead (and that I know is on top of the crevice.). He saw boys outside it who were strangely robotic. It appears to be a school.
Then, they’re out of food and he doesn’t come back the whole day, and it’s been a few days since he found game in his traps, and towards the end of the day she remembers the school and is afraid he went in to try and get food. So, on some instinct she hides her crown, which Otto’s mom told her to hide if she was afraid it was going to be captured because it’s powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands. She goes into the castle (and afterwards wonders if it was the smartest decision). She sneaks in with a bunch of new recruits but they seem to be hearing silent instructions that she’s not.
She follow the girl into class and unlike the other children there, doesn’t have a number. They catch her. As she’s taken out, she shouts that the Aesop’s fables they’re reading, which are horrible and cruel stories, aren’t real (such as a fly that pokes out the eyes of a driver so that he swerves into the other lane and his whole family and the cars in the way are killed.) She sees Otto in class, and knows he’s there, and what his number is, because the teacher called on him to read. She plans on escaping and bringing Otto out too.
She’s brought to a cell where there’s another girl who’s “out of tune”, named Jenny. (As in, not hearing the silent instructions everyone else does). She wants to be put back into tune, though, because as long as she’s not she’s going to be in a cell underground and not allowed out. Ellen tries to convince her to escape instead, unsuccessfully.
They try to hypnotize Ellen’s mind like everyone else’s but it doesn’t work. She isn’t influenced by it. She meets “the king” who’s the ruler of the school. She discovers he isn’t in control of himself at all but under the machine’s control, which is what’s putting everyone else into a hypnotized state and controlling their minds, and he’s acting on its demands. He has a crown like hers, but black while hers is silver.
A monk called Hieronymus made the machine a long time ago and the king found it, with the black crown, but not the silver one, and he knows it’s missing and wants it (but presumably, that’s the machine’s doing as everything else is too). The king tells her that it’s controlling everyone in the school and they’re planning on spreading its influences to the whole world.
When Ellen is put back in her cell, Jenny, who’s in the other cell, tells her she wants to escape after all. Ellen agrees, and manages to use their blankets to fit over the crack on the top of the ceiling and slide into the other girl’s cell and from there, to the next cell which is empty and open. Jenny doesn’t fit. Ellen says she didn’t plan on escaping today anyhow, and goes downstairs to look for an escape route, because upstairs is locked. She doesn’t find a way out, but she has a dream which leads her to think of a way out which she thinks will work. She also hears people in the lower-down cells and feels bad for them but goes back up to her cell with Jenny. Afterwards, or maybe it was earlier on, together with Jenny, they realize that the crown she has controls the machine and if she’d only bring it to the room where it is, she’d be able to control it.
Sometime later Otto comes and tells them he escaped and wants to help them. He asks her if she remembers where the crown is. She says she does, not in the least bit suspicious. Afterwards, it turns out he was still under the machine’s control and trying to get to her crown. Once they find the crown he starts to shout so they can be found. Ellen manages to tear away his belt, which is keeping him hypnotized, but it’s too late, and people are already coming for the crown. Jenny runs away with it.
Otto and Ellen are led back, glad that the crown got away and this time Otto isn’t hypnotized when he comes close, because he holds onto Ellen. They go in front of the king, and Otto finds that Jenny managed to make it there, and he throws the crown to Ellen who puts it on and gains control of everything and breaks the machine and aside from having no memory of their time under its control everyone else comes back to normal.
The fire on her house was set after her family left, by people from the school, and the robbery was staged to get Ellen by herself so they could take her and the crown, which the machine wanted for some reason, (the two endings disagree on why or how it found her in the first place)
She calls the police and they come, and don’t believe the story but take the children from the school, who were all kidnapped at one point or another. And, Ellen finds her family, who was underneath, the voices she’d heard that other night. And, her aunt comes with the man they found in the woods (they both got worried about Otto and Ellen and started looking). Otto thinks they should get married.
All in all, it’s a wild book where a little girl manages to overcome a great evil with a present she was given and decisions with wisdom beyond her years and younger readers would, I think, enjoy the excitement in it.
When I was young I remember enjoying Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH quite a bit. I think I would’ve enjoyed this too.
It’s Ellen’s 10th birthday and she wakes up and finds a crown on her bed. Naturally, this just confirms what she’d always knows, and what only her aunt really ever believed and didn’t only pretend to believe – that she’s a queen.
The worst part is that there are two endings offered which give two different reasons for the crown being there.
A bunch of impossible, unexplainable occurrences happen to Ellen.
Her house burns down and no none but her, who went outside before, survive.
Spoiler
She tells a police-man who isn’t sure whether to believe her, starts taking her to the station. There’s a robbery by a man in a green hood and he comes running out and shoots the store’s owner who comes out after him. The police-officer with Ellen tells her to wait, and gives chase. He doesn’t come back and later on she learns he was killed.Ellen decides to go to her aunt; she vaguely knows where she lives. She’s new to the neighborhood and doesn’t know anyone to ask for help – and decides to brave it on her own, I guess?
She goes to the gas-station to get a map to help her get to her aunt (she plans on hitchhiking) and then a man there tells her he lives right nearby and will take her. She’s so relieved. (But doesn’t think twice about taking a ride with a stranger who just happens to be going to right where she needs? At ten, she should know better.) And on the phone he speaks to someone and it sounds suspicious and says something about when they get where they’re going and she naturally assumes he meant when she gets where he’s taking her. Because, they’re not going to the same place.
The whole time she’s thinking extremely maturely for a ten-year-old and illogically and way too trustingly at the same time.
Then, she finds a green-hood in his glove-compartment, like the robber who shot the police-man and store owner was wearing, and she jumps out and he just misses her sleeve. In the forest, which she runs into, he looks for her, but she manages to hide, and he steps on her ankle, which hurts, but while the bone was supposed to have cracked it hurts surprisingly little and only bothers next when convenient. She finds a boy named Otto in the forest who happens to live there with his mother.
Only, she discovers it’s not his mother after all but a woman who found him in the forest when he was young. And, a man comes to the house in the middle of the night, presumably looking for Ellen, and Otto’s “mother” shoots outside to show him not to come, but is afraid he’ll come back so sends Ellen away Otto. They plan on walking to Ellen’s aunt.
He’s way more mature than your average eight year old, if not for the mention of his age, it would all work, but the whole time, I kept on remembering his age and thinking that something didn’t quite match. He can throw a weapon with precision from miles away, trap and cook animals and find their way in the forest (besides for at noon because the sun’s overhead so they have to stop and eat. At night they managed to sometimes continue on their journey, though.)
On the way they manage to evade another man who’s looking for them, with a black outfit with a green stripe. And, they come to a man’s house – Mr. Carter, who helps them move on and promises to watch out for those men (he, logically on his part, doesn’t believe them, until a man comes (same outfit) and asks after them and then he believes them and reassures them he’ll watch out for him for a few days).
As Otto and Ellen continue to Ellen’s aunt, they come across a crevice in the valley which they have to cross. They decide to climb down it, but it seems, numerous times, from what happens next, that they’re not really in it. That part was a bit confusing for me. Did they really climb down it, or did they plan on going down? Or did they go down and climb up on the other side? I wasn’t sure. It seemed like they climbed down, but why would they do that? Especially because further on Ellen follows it and sees it closes up (which was when I wondered if they went down in the first place, and guessed not, because she was seeing this from on top).
They’re delayed there because Ellen jumps down on the ankle she hurt before. And suddenly now she can’t move it. And they’re running out of food.
Then, Otto, who went to scout ahead (remember, Ellen can barely walk), says there’s a castle ahead (and that I know is on top of the crevice.). He saw boys outside it who were strangely robotic. It appears to be a school.
Then, they’re out of food and he doesn’t come back the whole day, and it’s been a few days since he found game in his traps, and towards the end of the day she remembers the school and is afraid he went in to try and get food. So, on some instinct she hides her crown, which Otto’s mom told her to hide if she was afraid it was going to be captured because it’s powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands. She goes into the castle (and afterwards wonders if it was the smartest decision). She sneaks in with a bunch of new recruits but they seem to be hearing silent instructions that she’s not.
She follow the girl into class and unlike the other children there, doesn’t have a number. They catch her. As she’s taken out, she shouts that the Aesop’s fables they’re reading, which are horrible and cruel stories, aren’t real (such as a fly that pokes out the eyes of a driver so that he swerves into the other lane and his whole family and the cars in the way are killed.) She sees Otto in class, and knows he’s there, and what his number is, because the teacher called on him to read. She plans on escaping and bringing Otto out too.
She’s brought to a cell where there’s another girl who’s “out of tune”, named Jenny. (As in, not hearing the silent instructions everyone else does). She wants to be put back into tune, though, because as long as she’s not she’s going to be in a cell underground and not allowed out. Ellen tries to convince her to escape instead, unsuccessfully.
They try to hypnotize Ellen’s mind like everyone else’s but it doesn’t work. She isn’t influenced by it. She meets “the king” who’s the ruler of the school. She discovers he isn’t in control of himself at all but under the machine’s control, which is what’s putting everyone else into a hypnotized state and controlling their minds, and he’s acting on its demands. He has a crown like hers, but black while hers is silver.
A monk called Hieronymus made the machine a long time ago and the king found it, with the black crown, but not the silver one, and he knows it’s missing and wants it (but presumably, that’s the machine’s doing as everything else is too). The king tells her that it’s controlling everyone in the school and they’re planning on spreading its influences to the whole world.
When Ellen is put back in her cell, Jenny, who’s in the other cell, tells her she wants to escape after all. Ellen agrees, and manages to use their blankets to fit over the crack on the top of the ceiling and slide into the other girl’s cell and from there, to the next cell which is empty and open. Jenny doesn’t fit. Ellen says she didn’t plan on escaping today anyhow, and goes downstairs to look for an escape route, because upstairs is locked. She doesn’t find a way out, but she has a dream which leads her to think of a way out which she thinks will work. She also hears people in the lower-down cells and feels bad for them but goes back up to her cell with Jenny. Afterwards, or maybe it was earlier on, together with Jenny, they realize that the crown she has controls the machine and if she’d only bring it to the room where it is, she’d be able to control it.
Sometime later Otto comes and tells them he escaped and wants to help them. He asks her if she remembers where the crown is. She says she does, not in the least bit suspicious. Afterwards, it turns out he was still under the machine’s control and trying to get to her crown. Once they find the crown he starts to shout so they can be found. Ellen manages to tear away his belt, which is keeping him hypnotized, but it’s too late, and people are already coming for the crown. Jenny runs away with it.
Otto and Ellen are led back, glad that the crown got away and this time Otto isn’t hypnotized when he comes close, because he holds onto Ellen. They go in front of the king, and Otto finds that Jenny managed to make it there, and he throws the crown to Ellen who puts it on and gains control of everything and breaks the machine and aside from having no memory of their time under its control everyone else comes back to normal.
The fire on her house was set after her family left, by people from the school, and the robbery was staged to get Ellen by herself so they could take her and the crown, which the machine wanted for some reason, (the two endings disagree on why or how it found her in the first place)
She calls the police and they come, and don’t believe the story but take the children from the school, who were all kidnapped at one point or another. And, Ellen finds her family, who was underneath, the voices she’d heard that other night. And, her aunt comes with the man they found in the woods (they both got worried about Otto and Ellen and started looking). Otto thinks they should get married.
All in all, it’s a wild book where a little girl manages to overcome a great evil with a present she was given and decisions with wisdom beyond her years and younger readers would, I think, enjoy the excitement in it.
blairsatellite's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
amydotreads's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
kivt's review against another edition
5.0
The image of the crow, silver crown, and cave stuck with me for a long time as a kid. They were all I remembered when I read this again. What a weird book.
kimberlymichelle's review against another edition
A childhood read-aloud with Cleo that we enjoyed
lfsalden's review against another edition
One of my favorite books! I just FOUND my 40-year-old copy and it welcomed me back like an old friend. There are child endangerment, magic, creepy strangers, and a strong girl main character who knows she's really a queen. Just. Fabulous. I strongly recommend it for 8 years old plus.
droffig's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
claudiamccarron's review against another edition
3.0
Was a little reluctant to give this one a try because I have never been able to enjoy Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, O'Brien's best-known book (and believe me, I've tried). The Silver Crown reminded me a bit of A Wrinkle in Time, and while I think it suffers by that comparison--the world-building and character development isn't nearly as satisfying--it was still an interesting read. The political parallels O'Brien draws are pretty dated, but there's a sense of strangeness in the opening chapters that is compelling, even if the pay-off doesn't live up to that promise.