The New York Times said of this book, back in 1973, that it was “not just a fine book but a brilliant one—and, in an age when writers are engulfing children with an almost gratuitous realism, it is exciting to read a story that glances back into the literary shadows of memory, fantasy and dream.” In 1974, The Court of the Stone Children won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Eleanor Cameron, who also wrote the Mushroom Planet books, was indeed an accomplished writer, and The Court of the Stone Children is an excellent story, appealing to both adults and children.

It’s a sort of a ghost story. Only Dominique, nicknamed Domi, the girl that Nina meets in the French Museum in San Francisco, isn’t really a ghost. It’s also sort of a time travel story, but Nina doesn’t really travel back in time, except in dreams, and Domi, a French girl of the early nineteenth century, just continues to live a semi-ghostly existence in order to stay close to the objects of her childhood home and perhaps to clear her father’s name. Domi’s father was executed as a traitor and murderer during the reign of Napoleon, and Domi needs Nina to help prove his innocence.

The French Museum that Nina falls in love with, along with museum life in general, is a key component of the story. Anyone who is fascinated with museums and how they work would love this book. And Nina’s growth from an immature and unhappy girl who was forced to move to San Francisco against her will into an understanding seeker of beauty and truth is also a part of what makes the novel shine. The way Ms. Cameron ties all these themes and storylines together—the love of beauty and the past, the search for truth, the nature of reality, the complications of making friends and loving family—all these things make for a beautiful and memorable story that children will carry with them into adulthood.

One minor issue didn’t bother me, but I’m sure it would some readers: in the past, early 1800’s, a fifteen year old girl falls in love with a thirty-five year old man, and he with her, and the two are betrothed to be married. This romantic relationship is presented as somewhat unusual, even for the times, but ultimately wholesome and good. Nothing explicit, or illicit, is described or even hinted at, and although I wouldn’t condone such a relationship nowadays, times were indeed different over two hundred years ago.

I thought The Court of the Stone Children was an excellent book, deserving of the National Book Award and worthy of its place in my library.