Samenvatting van Waar de kinderen van Gritli zijn gebleven

The story in 8 parts

1. Key idea 1 · free to read

   A sick girl and her mother on the Rhine

   The story opens on a June morning at a fine stone house on the Rhine. Roses climb the walls, and lime trees dip their branches into the river. At an upstairs window sits Nora, a pale girl in her eleventh year, who begs to be taken down to the stone bench beneath the trees.

   Her mother, Mrs. Stanhope, watches her every move with fear. Nearly two years earlier her son Philo died, and he lies buried beneath white roses by the lime trees. Now Nora grows weaker each week. On the bench she watches the green branches float on the waves and says she would love to drift along like that. But she is always tired.

   The one who understands Nora best is old Clarissa, who runs the household. In the evening she recites an old song about Paradise, with a crystal river, white lilies and people who know no tears. Mrs. Stanhope cannot bear to hear it. So Nora can speak of heaven to Clarissa but not to her mother. The doctor writes to a friend in Switzerland, and mother and daughter set out for the mountains. Both act from love, yet neither can say so.

   Loving someone sometimes means listening to what they dare not say to you.

2. 2

   A doctor's house full of children and quarrels

   The carriage stops at the doctor's house in the village of Buchberg.

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3. 3

   Buchberg, the factory and the boy named Feklitus

   Buchberg is a scatter of farms and cottages around a church and school.

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4. 4

   Gritli's children, Fani and Elsli, at home

   The title promises the story of Gritli's children, and now they step forward.

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5. 5

   Nora and Elsli meet at Oak Ridge

   The doctor's wife finds Mrs. Stanhope a place in a new house on Oak Ridge, with a wide view over green hills toward distant snow.

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6. 6

   Oskar's festival and Emmi's secret plan

   Meanwhile the comic plot rolls on.

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7. 7

   Poverty and kindness shape these children's lives

   One of the book's main subjects is how poverty limits children and how kindness opens a way out.

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8. 8

   Faith, grief and the gentle comedy of the telling

   The second theme is hope in the face of death.

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