The Sherwood Ring. We have read many books thus far in our homeschooling quest to learn, truly learn. Our homeschool curriculum for history and literature is through the Sonlight Curriculum and the large box that arrived on our doorstep over a year ago regaled us with a plethora of mostly historical fiction books. While I, and dare I say we, have enjoyed immensely many of the books we have read (in the order our Sonlight Curriculum has suggested), I believe we have stumbled upon my favorite: The Sherwood Ring, by Elizabeth Marie Pope. And I say this now, even though we have not even come to the end of the story. In fact I have only read-a-loud less than half.
Our wonderful, witty present offering is set in a particular house in Upstate New York (in present-day times; at least, present-day for the time of the author); this house, supposedly haunted, has survived through the generations from the American Revolutionary War-era and is named, Rest-and-be-Thankful where our heroine’s uncle, Enos, is caretaker, who has kept the house in estimable condition, as is his passion. When Peggy Grahame’s father dies unexpectedly, she’s sent to live with that eccentric Uncle Enos, a man who, thankfully for our story, is also obsessed with the past.
Uncle Enos has little to do with his niece Peggy; and with Peggy spending so much time to her own devices, in a house awash with history, stories unfinished, and treasures awaiting revelation, Peggy discovers the amazing past of Rest-and-be-Thankful when she is visited by four ghosts: Richard Grahame, an ancestor of Peggy’s, and a proud, dashing Revolutionary War officer; Eleanor Shipley, a feisty girl from a neighboring farm; Richard’s dutiful but resourceful sister, Barbara, who finds surprising respite from her frustrated life through an unexpected meeting; and a rather-troublesome British officer named Peaceable Drummond Sherwood—I guess one would call the antagonist of our story, who brings little peace to our protagonist and kind.
The ghosts appear to Peggy, at unexpected times at Rest-and-be-Thankful, and relate how each of their lives became entwined when Richard Grahame is sent by none other than General George Washington to capture the elusive, rogue Peaceable Sherwood and his ring of Tories who has been leading daring raids against the Continental Army and thwarting their supply trains. When Grahame is headquartered at the farm of Miss Eleanor Shipley, his childhood nemesis, now a fiery and spirited woman, Richard finds Miss Eleanor to be as much of a challenge as catching Peaceable. Although Barbara is the first to appear to Peggy, she re-appears to bring us the story of her difficult Aunt Susanna, a frustrating, I-want-to-slap-that-old-woman “tyrant suffering from twenty-seven different diseases...’ and her escape from her aunt’s clutches, or captivity as it better appears, to Barbara’s surprising encounter with the very last person she’d ever expect to come face to face with – Peaceable Sherwood, at none other than at Rest-and-be-Thankful and which has a surprising turn of events.
I would like to share what happens next but that is the very spot I closed the book after reading each delectable, page-turning nugget that Ms. Pope has brought to us. The chapters may be overly long but they are witty, and unravel a story-full of intricate characters and thickening plot that an hour of reading aloud cannot satisfy the pungent desire to read more. The book is a forest of spies, unlocking secret codes, perilous chases, witting escapes, and delectable, blushing romances (while the boys hide their face under a pillow, giggle, and go eeeewe).
