A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson

Like her mother and spinster aunts, Ellen was destined to become a liberal, freethinking, independent woman of causes. Anyone raised by a house full of suffragettes, female doctors, and female professors in Bloomsbury, London was bound to be.  That’s why at first they weren’t alarmed when Ellen picked flowers and baked buns as a little girl. What really got them worrying was the maids. Nothing wrong with helping with the cleaning, but Ellen seemed to enjoy making beds and folding laundry. Though deemed not without her wits, soon enough Ellen is passing on university and accepts a position as matron at the Hallendorf School in Austria. In between cooking, tidying, and general housekeeping, she meets eccentric children, even more unorthodox teachers, and a mysterious man named Marek. Marek, who just seems to get her, fascination with storks, quest for Kohlröserl (rare black orchids) , housekeeping wiring and  all.  Ellen is a breath of fresh air for the school, turning wild children into students to make any parent proud and elevating the school’s reputation up to its former renown.  Just as everything seems to be turning for the better Hitler’s war threatens to halt her hard work and take Marek, who she continues to discover is not who he seems, away.

I had mixed reactions to A Song for Summer. I was in the mood for a lovely, historical romance, and I got that.  The plucky heroine, the mysterious and handsome man, the unique supporting characters, the awkward coincidental situations and of course the happy ending are all here.  The humor and the easily-quoted writing is especially up to par as well.  One of my favorite passages is at the beginning when Ellen’s mother and aunts realize that she enjoys house-cleaning  and what that might mean about her intelligence and her future career.

“Once when the maid was ill they came across her with her school uniform hitched up, scrubbing the floor, and she said: ‘Look, isn’t it beautiful, the way the light catches the soap bubbles?’

Did she perhaps do altogether too much looking? The sisters had read their Blake; they knew it was desirable to see the world in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour. But the world in a scrubbing brush? The world in a bowl of fruit?

‘Perhaps she’s going to be a painter?’ suggested Aunt Phyllis.

A great woman painter, the first female president of the Royal Academy? It was a possibility.

But Ellen didn’t want to paint apples. She wanted to smell them, turn them in her hands, and eat them.” (p. 7-8)

How can you not smile after that exchange?  I read along happily until the unexpected conclusion of Part I, which is three-fourths of the book. I would’ve been completely satisfied if the book had no Part II.  What I should anticipate with all books set during Hitler’s era but didn’t this time was the drawn-out coasting through life and suffering that Ellen and Marek would be forced to go through as a result of the war. I realize this is unspeakable, but after all Ellen had been through I almost wanted her to be happy with someone else.  If anything, the war proved the strength and compatibility of Marek and Ellen’s attachment, despite how impossible it seemed.  I suppose I was in the mood for something a little easier won.  My complaints aside the hopelessness doesn’t last long and the ending is sweet.  Along the way Ibbotson’s writing evokes beautiful imagery of the Austrian countryside.  Memorable images include the tortoise on wheels, Pettelsdorf, and the school.  As always we’re enveloped in both setting and characters, of whom each are distinctive and developed.  (Lieselotte, Brigitta, and Meierwitz come to mind.)  Perhaps since Ibbotson experienced WWII Austria firsthand herself did this seem so bleak and grimly real. Overall a sweet but hard-won Ibbotson historical romance that I would recommend.

Second Opinions
Laughing Stars Review
Magical Musings Review
My Tea Time is Book Time Review
The Bookworm Chronicles Review
The Compulsive Reader Review