Read Aloud: “The Scarlet Pimpernel” by Baroness Emma Orczy

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A couple of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes have to do with his thoughts on children's literature:

"No book is really worth reading at age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty", and

"...a children's story which is only enjoyed by children is a bad children's story."

I knew when I first read this book a few months ago that our girls would love it, and they did. In fact, they enjoyed this book so much that they had me read it aloud late into the night each time we got a chance to read it (which was definitely sporadic). We worked on it over the course of several weeks. We finally finished it last night at about 12:30 am - the last 3 chapters in about an hour and a half. An interesting aspect of this story is that, from the beginning, the two main characters are a married couple, although certainly not a happily-married couple ... at first. Orczy took great pains to make sure the reader saw how Marguerite's feelings toward her husband could undergo such a complete transformation in such a short period of time.

The girls wanted very much for this to have been a true story. Different ones at different times asked, "Was there really a Scarlet Pimpernel?" I told them that as far as I know, there was not, but there could have been Englishmen who did similar things during the French Revolution.

Now we're looking forward to seeing some screen adaptations of this, and we have several friends who recommend the Jane Seymour version done in the early '80s. I can easily picture her as Marguerite Blakeney. I think Sir Percy would be more difficult to cast.

As an aside, I love how good children's books challenge kids with rich, descriptive vocabulary. Even the older girls learned some new words in this one: "imperturbably" and "anathema" come to mind. I only wish I knew French so I could pronounce all the words properly. A friend from church helped us with some of the basics of French pronunciation. I'm sure when we watch the screen adaptations, my shortcomings in this area will be obvious. :-)

(No pictures of this book being read, since I was the one reading it! :-)