El patio de los niños de piedra ganó el National Award for Children's Literature en 1974.

Fieldnotes:
The (fictional) French Museum in San Francisco, Contemporary (p.1973)

1 Girl with a "Museum Feeling"
1 Museum with Recreated Rooms from a French Chateau
1 Courtyard with Stone Statues of Children
1 Mysterious Spirit with a Distinctive Ring
1 Journal
1 Fresh Perspective

1 Slightly Odd Friendship
1 Project Regarding Time
1 Marc Chagall Painting ( )

I do like Eleanor Cameron's books. This was the National Book Award Winner in 1974. I can say, this isn't one of my favorites. It was okay, not sure how it earned such an honor. ( )

One of those books I read and re-read, or at least started a lot of times. I was familiar with the first part, and I probably put it down when the list of characters grew larger and larger. I know I read it through once because I remember having an "ah-ha!" moment when a key painting is explained; I would not have made the connection with the Napoleonic Wars and Napoleon's traits as a despot when I was a child.

It starts with a young-ish girl, Nina, (aged 12? 14?) who has moved from her nature-infused life in the Sierra Nevada to the hills and apartments of San Francisco and is struggling to find herself. A set of school popular girls let her know she's not welcome in their group, and it's with the help of another misfit, Gil, that she discovers a fictional French Museum. Gil has an interest in Time and while their friendship is not a central part of the story, the idea of Time certainly is. Nina has a "Museum Feeling" that becomes quite acute in her new museum home, and it's here she meets Domi.

Dominique is the daughter of the former owner of the Chateau that is now the museum who was once a confidante of Napoleon. In the courtyard of this museum is an arrangement of 6 stones statues, all children of the artist Chrysostome. It is also in this courtyard that Domi makes herself known to Nina through a token that Domi shares with the caretaker of the museum. (Any wonder that I was puzzled by all of this when I was 11??) Also as part of the museum is a two-volume journal kept by Odile, one of the daughters of Chrysostome, that holds the key to a two-hundred-year-old mystery.

So again, giving my eleven-year-old self a break here, there are lots of different threads in this tiny little book. I had half-remembered that the stone children came alive until something was fixed at the end (they don't), and I have always remembered the phrase "that funny way cat's whiskers have" when a person is scratching under a cat's chin. But any other details about this book had completely slipped my mind, so even though it's a re-read for me (another 2018 challenge), it was completely new. ( )

Some quiet young readers will love this. But the blurb is misleading - Nina does not go back in time, much less to France, and the adventure (such as it is) doesn't even start until about 2/3 of the way through. Mostly it's about this girl who has trouble making friends with most children, and about museums, and about the nature of Time. Members of which discipline have the best handle on understanding Time? Artists, like Marc Chagall? Quantum physicists, who study the Uncertainty Princlple? Poets, like May Sarton? Gardeners, philosophers, psychics, musicians? Implied in the text, at least in my interpretation of Cameron's theme, is the answer 'anybody but most historians.'

If I owned this I'd consider reading it again in a few years, when in a different mood or place in my life - I'm sure I didn't fully appreciate it. However, it's a library book, so it goes back. ( )