Gone-Away Lake

Gone-Away Lake is a 1957 book by Elizabeth Enright, set in that time period. Return to Gone-Away, a sequel published in 1961, discusses how the Blake family buys a house in Gone-Away.

Plot

Gone-Away Lake starts on a train, traveling through the countryside. Portia and her brother Foster are coming to see their favorite cousin, Julian Blake. Once there, Portia and Julian are walking in the forest when they discover an old Victorian resort community next to a bog. Elderly siblings Minnehaha and Pindar, the town's only inhabitants, soon become friends with the children, who set up a club in an abandoned house. Stories of the days when the bog was a lake are interspersed with the modern-day adventures of Portia, Julian, and Foster. Eventually, Portia and Julian introduce Gone-Away to their family and friends.

Awards, praise and nominations

Gone-Away Lake received the New York Herald Tribune's Children's Spring Book Festival Award in 1957, in addition to the 1958 Newbery Honor. In 1963 the American Library Association named Gone-Away Lake as the U.S. nominee for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award. Also awarded to the book was the Lalachicachan Award in 1972.

The New York Times praised the book's "... brilliance and ... humor that make it seem as if it were happening right this minute."