November Book Report: Over the Gate

On Instagram, I follow a handful of book readers, among them a group calling itself #missreadalong.  It’s a group that loves Miss Read books as much as I do and for some months of the year, the group reads a particular Miss Read book.  This November, the pick was Miss Read’s Over the Gate and of course I participated.

I’ve read this book before, but these days that is rather the point of a Miss Read book for me.  I’ve been reading them since 2006 and in every way, they have been comforting and happy reads.  The stories, which are unfailingly rooted in the joys and frustrations of everyday life, offer companionship and comfort.

There are two series in the Miss Read collection:  Fairacre and Thrush Green.  Each represents its own tiny universe of characters with amusing foibles of their own.  I love them both because of the way they are populated by very human people.  The Fairacre series is narrated by the wry Miss Read, the head teacher at the Fairacre school, a woman whose heart is kind without being sappy.  

The stories were written as a series and, as time passed, author Dora Saint filled in gaps in the collections, sometimes with stories of the characters who populate the books.  That is the case with Over the Gate, a collection of stories about Fairacre.

Nothing big ever happens in Fairacre and that is the charm of the stories - they are about daily life.  In Miss Read’s evocative descriptions of the everyday, there is always grace to be found.  When I need that grace I return to the stories, reading and re-reading them as often as I please.  That’s happy!