The village school is a hundred years old and headmistress Miss Read is fully occupied planning the festivities.

SUMMER AT FAIRACRE charmingly recounts this bright, bustling season and the problems and possibilities that unfold against the backdrop of roses, skylarks and bees. Joseph Coggs finds a temporary home in the schoolhouse while his mother is in the hospital. Miss Read's friend Amy mysteriously disappears. Perhaps most difficult of all, Mrs Pringle, the grumpy school cleaner, is unable to work because of her 'bad leg'. Still, the sounds of children playing and the fragrance of summertime flowers fill the air, as Miss Read shepherds her students and friends through the warm season.

The villagers of Thrush Green celebrate Christmas traditionally, in a way that has hardly changed over the generations. Children eagerly hang up their stockings, families go to church together and everyone enjoys the treats of the festive season. And when it snows as the carol singers make their way round the cottages on the green, it looks as if Christmas will be perfect this year. But not everything is as peaceful as it seems.
Phyllida and Frank have their work cut out for them when they agree to take on the Nativity play - made all the more difficult by an outbreak of chicken pox. The...

The people of Thrush Green and Fairacre celebrate Christmas in a traditional style which has hardly changed over the generations. Children eagerly hang up their stockings, families go to Church together, and everyone enjoys Christmas cake and other treats of the festive season.

A nostalgic collection on rural schools, childhood and English country life from the much-loved author of VILLAGE SCHOOL.

From organising the school summer fete...

'Because of our inability to recognise our climatic shortcomings from the outset, arrangements for outdoor jollities get completely out of hand'.

...to the sometimes rather odd passions of childhood:

'I collect stones with holes in them'.

Miss Read captures the essence of rural life, and in particular of village schools, as only she can. This collection also includes extracts from her letters:...