Fun and games and places to play

What keeps the children in well-loved stories so busy and happy? Do they have favorite toys? Is there a game they play or an activity they enjoy? See if you can identify the titles of the books where these story characters appear,

1. [She] thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life: it was all ridges and furrows: the croquet balls were live hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. The chief difficulty [she] found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out ... it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing....

2. At home, the children spread the game out on a card table. It looked very much like the games they already had. There was a board that unfolded, revealing a path of colored squares. The squares had messages written on them. The path started in the deepest jungle and ended up in ... a city of golden buildings and towers. Peter began to shake the dice and play with the other pieces that were in the box.... "J _ _ _ _ _ _: a young people's jungle adventure especially designed for the bored and the restless."

3. He lay still for a long time, wondering. Had he imagined it? The noise did not start again. At last he cautiously turned the key and opened the cupboard door. The Indian was gone. Omri sat up sharply in bed and peered into the dark corners. Suddenly he saw him. But he wasn't on the shelf anymore, he was in the bottom of the cupboard. And he wasn't standing upright. He was crouching in the darkest corner, half hidden by the front of the cupboard. And he was alive.

4. She put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key, and found that it fitted the keyhole. She turned the key. And then she took a deep breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if anyone was coming. No one was. She held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed the door, which opened slowly ... slowly. Then she slipped through it, shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement and wonder and delight. She was standing inside....

ANSWERS

(1) 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,' by Lewis Carroll (1865); (2) 'Jumanji,' by Chris Van Allsburg (1981); (3) 'The Indian in the Cupboard," by Lynne Reid Banks (1980); (4) 'The Secret Garden,' by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911).

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society