Relatives are charming
588111
Funny and good to understand our weird relatives. Every family should read this book. For sure it will help us to be better human beings.
4205312
Grandsons and their parents enjoyed very much.
3987437
Our family is going to give a copy of each book in the Alice and Alistair series to our friends who have children.

Alice and Alistair Have A Restaurant is marvelous. Our nieces and nephews love the book.  It is large enough for them to hold,  and the illustrations are warm with a charming, old-fashioned flavor.  The series depicts animal characters who, through their adventures, help and support each other.

The dedication of this title reads, For those of us who are tempted to leap before we look.

This is part of a delightful series that began with Alice Mongoose and Alistair Rat in Hawaii which shows how Alice, an adventurous  mongoose, leaves her home in India and  arrives in Hawaii.  She meets and befriends Alistair Rat.  Alice doesn't realize that Alistair (and all rats) are supposed to be her arch enemies, although Alistair and his Hawaiian family  are well aware of this rivalry.  This misunderstanding is part of the fun in the series.

In this particular title,  since Alice and Alistair enjoy cooking for each other, they decide to open a restaurant to share meals with their friends.  Surprises and misadventures take place as they learn the importance of cooperation and planning.
2382303
Augusta Oglethorpe is stranded with her widowed sister, Clarissa's three small children just before Christmas. She invades the hunting box of Richard the Marquess of Ardath, who she knows had been pursuing Clarissa. He indeed had been, with certain intentions that included marriage. Alas, for both parties, she is not there nor in fact anywhere to be found.
The weeks until Christmas that ensue prove to be both eventful and eye-opening for Augusta the bluestocking and Richard the rake. Poor Augusta's bemused invasion by the children was well done, (deserted by both her cat and her personal maid!).
Well of course the pair fall very easily in love with the children as well as each other. In fact Richard rather over does the fond 'father' and practically lives in the quartet's pockets.
This was a charming story, with both hero and heroine nicely drawn (if a little lightly). The three children are not horribly good or bad, convincingly childish without being twee. My only complaint in this regard, was that both the adults were far to lenient with the little creatures, apparently being unable to resist melting looks and beseeching big eyes.
This and also the very strange fact of just why Richard would want to marry a widow with three very young children kept the story from the five stars. Huntington gives the standard explantion of Richard thinking Clarissa as good a match as any and that he lusted after her - but the children really stretched this piece of conventionality.
A light, charming, entertaining confection in keeping with the Christmas setting.
4012884
My siblings and I love our elves.  We know that our parents don't move them because they have creative hiding spots.  We even write to them and got to know our elves.  Don't pay attention to the news articles that say they are not real and that parents have to move them each night.
4511101
I can see this becoming a part of family tree decorating traditions for years to come -- including ours! Absolutely charming.
3880533
My late aunt, Erika Richter-Donohue, was the granddaughter of Hans Richter (she being the daughter of Edgar Richter, who was the son of Hans Richter).  Erika was my aunt by virtue of her marrying my father's brother, Edward Donohue, after the War on October 1, 1945.  When Erika emigrated from Germany, she brought her father and mother with her, Edgar and Elizabeth Richter, who were both operatic performers.  Erika, her husband and my uncle Edward, together with Edgar and Elizabeth, moved from Chicago to settle in Wauconda, Illinois.  My parents, me, and my sister and grandmother, all remained in Chicago, but we visited the Wauconda side of the family very frequently.  I vividly remember many, many family dinners in Wauconda, a time when the entire family actually sat together at a formal dining table.  Get this: the men in our family at that time wore white shirt and tie to dinner, and the women always wore dresses.  Of course, at the formal table at every occasion was Edgar Richter and Elizabeth, son and daughter-in-law of the great maestro Hans Richter.  Hanging prominently in the dining room was the famous Portrait of Hans Richter conducting Bruckner (the famous eleven silhouette images by Dr. Otto Bhler, Vienna, c. 1900).

Edgar, son of Hans, was an avid cigar aficionado and always wore a three piece suit to our family dinners with a gold vest watch and chain.  I recall him almost constantly humming, and being a very happy and content gentleman.  My cousin, Dolores and I (Dolores being the daughter of Erika, and therefore the great granddaughter of Hans), were both very surprised to read in Maestro Fifield's great book, that Hans did not attend Edgar's wedding because Hans was upset with the way Edgar managed his finances.

So, with this great family history and remembrances of many family dinners with the son of Hans, of course, five stars!  And thank you so much, Maestro Fifield, for this amazing biography of one of my distant family members.  Thank you!
4172838
This lucky family gets to spend wonderful, sunny days at a cottage with dunes and sandy beaches.  A mystery ensures when the youngest daughter cannot find her best friend, a fuzzy blue bunny.  This story is instructive in that members of the family obviously care for one another and the children get along.  Families can spend time together in enjoyable pursuits!  Allowing the young reader to choose the story's ending is a novel idea (to me) and I think most children will like to use their imaginations.

Nice follow-up to Sweet T, Cat, and the artwork is beautiful. Keep them coming.
840775
I enjoyed this family. I love the dynamic of the family all this sense of community gives such security. Loved it.
1981286
This book gives a warm and heartfelt feeling of family, weekends, food, music, dance, and joking around with cousins, uncles, and hugging grandmothers.  The house is reminiscent of being in the country on a cool afternoon, while everyone is prepping the backyard with tables of food, people in the kitchen, and kids running around.  Even as the artwork stands alone, the paintings still offer an amazing compliment into the narration.  Definitely recommended for any family, and all occasions.
3707615
It's a well written book. I enjoy all the cousins for different reasons. I thought the author did a good job of linking their individual stories into their family story. It was a good read.
744351
This set of 10 nose and glasses disguises helps even the most distant relatives feel like family.  One of my favorite standards over the years, it helps you either stand out or fit in (if everyone else wears theirs)
1146905
In the last ten years there has been a stream of "living on the Continent" books: Brits in Spain, Americans in south of France, everyone in Tuscany.  Some were charming, some self pitying, and some "Gee, how exotic it all is! Lucky me!"  Well that's not what this is about.
It is really the memoir of a house, an inherited house developed in a somewhat great ( not quite grand) style, written by the heir at the end of a long and interesting intellectual life.  The various fameous and not so fameous, the hangers on and the local villagers enter into it all and are portrayed along with pictures of the grounds and some of the convivial rooms in what must be described as a family album in the middle of the book.
A word of warning. This is a quirky book, sometimes a bit annoying: reminiscent of an elderly aunt telling the assembled family stories about childhood adventures with great-grandfather as the sun sets. Not for everyone such charm.
3122109
This is a very charming book that makes you feel warm and as if you are a part of the family in the book. Grandma Bee is inspirational and shows love and devotion to God and family. The author captured the essence of Grandma Bee and standards, values, and morals that she taught to her siblings as well as her children and grandchildren.
1927046
This is an excellent collected telling of four generations of a family written in the author's beautiful prose.  Love it.
4932459
Carolyn is my cousin, the family lost touch with her years ago. I'm Patricia, Velma and Fred's daughter. My mom always wondered what happened to her, we're glad to see she is doing good. I really enjoyed reading about my Grandparents, and my Aunt's and Uncles. I Really enjoyed the book, looking forward to more stories thank you Carolyn.
Here's a picture of the Dancer sisters
3374122
Sadie Jones' novel The Uninvited Guests is a wonderful combination of the charm and wry social commentary of EM Forster, the lively fun characters and setting of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle and a dash of spookiness and sadness from a Henry James short story.

The Torrington family live in an old manor home named Sterne, but it is not their ancestral home. Horace Torrington passed away, leaving his wife Charlotte (now Mrs. Swift, as she has remarried), and children Clovis, Emerald and Imogen (or Smudge as she is called!) to fend for themselves. Their stepfather, Edward Swift is not well regarded by the children, and has decided to try and save the family home. However, it is Emerald's birthday and a party is planned regardless of his absence (which is fine with the children who do hold him in high regard anyhow). Guests have been invited, and some, well, some just show up.

Great prose, with lot of sparkle, wit and humor really move this story along. I loved the writing. "The children, too, feeling that they were at the end of a line,as children always do (for indeed, they are). loved Sterne as exhausted travellers with lifetimes of migration behind them might love their first and last home. Sterne was the mythology of their parents' marriage, their father's legacy, and it had given them the very best of childhoods. Beyond that, it was beautiful, and the effect of it on their souls was inestimable; once found, they all of them loath to give it up."  I was entranced. There are many wonderful descriptions like this one.

The characters are great, believable in their foibles and imperfections: Charlotte Torrington Swift as the narcissistic and ethereal mother; Emerald as the idealistic,  beautiful and smart young woman; Clovis, the man of the house in the absence of his one armed step father, arrogant and haughty, yet he so obviously adores the women in his life; Smudge, with her own plans and ideas of what's important in life (her pony!). Besides the family, there is an array of wonderful, if stereotyped characters who reside at Sterne, live near it, or arrive for the party, or in spite of it.

This book is a surprise, just like an uninvited guest at a birthday party. A very fun, summer read. I really loved being in its pages, feeling like I was at a party myself the whole time. Great fun.