Greta lives in a village in Nova Scotia during the 1940s. This costal village has sea mists and fog that covers the community, sending them indoors, but not Greta, from a young age she is drawn to the fog, and explores the changed landscape finding that during these foggy hours it has changed more than expected. Greta finds that an old part of the village, where the houses have burnt down leaving only cellar holes (view spoiler)[ this appears for her as the houses once were and whilst the fog la...

My mother took care of Mrs. Sauer before her death and as a gift she gave her the three books she wrote, autographed. After my mother moved she passed these books onto me because she knew I enjoyed reading them growing up. It was a treat to re-read them now as an adult.Fog Magic was one of my favorite books as a child. It's a wonderful "ghost story" that I think has gotten better since the first time I have read it.

Personally, with regard to the exquisite and delightful reading and emotional atmosphere that Julia L. Sauer creates in her Newbery honour winning Fog Magic (and yes, how her writing style so totally and wonderfully does remind me of Lucy Maud Montgomery, which is most definitely very high praise from me), Fog Magic is most certainly a five star book (for I do love that sense of magic created by the fog, the effortless time travelling scenarios and how Greta feels right at home in the past and h...

“It’s the things you were born to that give you satisfaction in this world, Greta. [ . . . ] And maybe the fog’s one of them. Not happiness, mind! Satisfaction isn’t always happiness by a long sight; then again, it isn’t sorrow either. But the rocks and the spruces and the fogs of your own land are the things that nourish you. You can always have them no matter what else you find or what else you lose.” Greta Addington is 10 and lives in Little Valley, Nova Scotia. Unlike most in her small coas

Ive read this a dozen times at least, it was favorite of my mothers and now a favorite of mine. Truly an escape, wonderment but not in a fantasy land, fairies and dragons kind of way. This small girls fascination with the fog takes her back in time...but not very far back, historically speaking, making it all the more tangible. Pick a foggy or rainy afternoon and read this.

One of those awesome atmospheric children's books, with an unusual setting (or at least it was unusual to me)--maritime Canada.

Greta loves the fogs that come rolling in from the sea. There is something mysterious about them, no one likes them, the others find it a hindrance, the farmers cannot dry the hay, the housewives cannot find a place to air their clothes...but for Greta it is a time of happiness. For years she was just happy to see the fog rolling in and then one fine day she saw houses and later people...this was the beginning of her relationship with the people of the Blue Cove. She was one of the chosen ones.....

Title: Fog MagicAuthor: Julia L. SauerPublisher: PuffinRelease Date: 1943Rating: 5/5Cover Impressions: This is my favorite cover of this book and the one that I remember. It gets the old fishing village just right and has the beautiful, soft and ethereal quality of the fog.Review:When I was a little girl I discovered this book on the shelf of my tiny school library. I read it at least twice a year for the rest of my time at that school. It was my go-to book when I was feeling sad or lonely (whic...

I love this enchanting and magical little book, and decided to treat myself to a first edition (1943) which arrived the day after Christmas, Boxing Day! It reminds me so much of Greenwillow, about another magical little village, another one of my favorite books (can one have too many "favorite" books?!) I lose myself in another world whenever I read these two books.

Despite the title and the magical device of the fog allowing time travel, this book isn't really much of a fantasy -- it is about everyday life, family relationships, and the bittersweet experience of growing up.

This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.On foggy days, 11-year-old Greta is able to travel back in time and visit the long-lost village of Blue Cove. There she meets Mrs. Morrill and her daughter, Retha, who become Greta's close friends. The visits continue for some months, giving Greta special glimpses into a past she has heard stories about her whole life. All the while, though, Greta's twelfth birthday approaches. On this day, everyone seems to know, Greta will grow too old to e...

A long time ago when I was in 6th grade, I was digging through the bookshelf in our English classroom when I encountered this little gem.It had old-fashioned cover art, on top of which a gray Newberry seal was printed. Because I was obsessed with dates back then, I checked the published date for this one and discovered it was 1943.To me, that was obscenely old. That was during WWII! Because of its oldness, the gray medal, and its shortness (I was into giant 500-page fantasy books back then) I de...

My favorite thing about Fog Magic is when the fog comes in, Greta saw a different world. When she discovered the fog had magic in it was when she was looking for the milk cow and thought she saw a house in the fork of the road. Then Greta found friends on the other side of the mountain called Blue Cove. Her new friends name was Retha and Mrs. Morrill. My favorite part of the book was when Retha and Greta were picking berries and it was time for Greta to go home and Mrs. Morrill gave Greta a piec...

Fog Magic by Julia L. Sauer, ©1943. 5+ Stars. A wonderful middle grade book featuring irresistable fog as a means for a girl to time travel! A tale of a Nova Scotia family and their girl who is about to turn twelve, this book explores magical realism and takes us with it as it bends time to give us a peek of the main character Greta’s newfound world. Will reality and responsibility make her a different person when she grows up; will she forget? This book was so good it was a Newbery Honor recipi...

An only child who loves the fog and lives in Nova Scotia by the sea circa 1940 (although it could have been earlier; there are minimal references to cars and that's about it) ... it has to be good. But, it falls short. This reads like an early draft ready to be developed. A little more depth to the characters. A little more to the plot. As it stands, I doubt that it will be one of those books that stays with me for very many years. (view spoiler)[Anthony is important to the enchantment of the ta...

It's very old-style, a series of visits from a girl who lives in one island village to the families and village that existed on another part of the island two generations ago (it's now vanished). There's no violence or big action, just interactions between people.And I can't really complain about why I didn't like it without spoiling the end. I apologize!

I found this book on my second grade teacher's shelf and absolutely fell in love. The story completely grabbed me -- enough so that I read it a second time later on and still think about to this day.

An intriguing story about what a young girl finds when she studies the fog that rolls into her community. Very enjoyable.

First published in 1932, this small book was captivating. A young girl, who lives on an island in Nova Scotia, loves the fog. Unlike the fishermen who need the light for their living, Julia cannot wait for the fog to toll in. Begging her mother to leave for a walk, Julia soon accomplishes her tasks and walks over the mountain, into a land where she is taken away to a place where in the day there are only markers of where houses where, now in the fog, she is drawn to a small village.Going back in...

A sweet, simple, magical story about a girl who loves the fog and discovers in it a way to time travel to a nearby community in the past. I enjoyed how a number of plot threads are so realistically left unresolved as an explicit theme of the book. I understand the ending is a sore point for some readers, and I think I can describe the problem vaguely enough to not spoil it badly, but I'll put some spoiler tags around this anyway: (view spoiler)[Just before the end, it basically characterizes the...

2007 - My mother-in-law recommended this book after I noted how pretty the fog was while at her house for Christmas. It's a young adult novel, written in 1943. It's about a Nova Scotian girl who discovers that when the fog rolls into her fishing village, she can actually visit the neighboring village--which has been gone for decades and in her present life is just a bunch of cellar holes. It's a great story for those of us who love nostalgia (and fog).Dad and 11yo read it together March 2020.

I remember this book from when I was a little girl. I read it in school, and it had me going out on foggy days, hoping to find my own magical village. I never did find houses or friends in the fog, but I did do a lot of exploring and discovering, which was almost as good. Just finished re-reading the book, and the richness of the story, as well as the life lesson, that each part of our lives is a season, and though things change as we grow, and we leave some things behind, new things will come i...

There's something peaceful and gentle about this book, much like the nature of the fog itself. While most of Greta's little seaside village grumbles when the fog rolls in, Greta is drawn to it. On her frequent walks, she often goes through a deserted village... only in the fog, it's not so deserted anymore. Somehow, through the mist of the fog, she has stepped back in time. The story is a wonderful escape, worthy of the awards it earned when it was first printed in 1943.

This is a lovely little book. I read it as a child and it stayed with me--every time I see fog I wonder if I could walk into it at just the right time and find a different world. I found it again in a box of books I had stored away and was glad to see it was as good as I remembered. It's well-written, and doesn't talk down to the young readers for whom it was intended. And any book that stays with you for 40+ years deserves 5 stars.

I've loved this book for years, and it didn't let me down now either. While the end speeds up and comes too quickly, the book itself is still eerie and magical, and makes me want to live on Nova Scotia (or whatever island it's set on that's all foggy). Read this one with a girl who's a quiet, magic-lover.

I'm not a fan of fantasy, but Rachel enjoyed this short sweet book.

This Newbury honor book tells the story of a fog-obsessed girl living in Nova Scotia. While others see the fog as an economic hardship, Greta loves it. She ventures "over the mountain" into a land of imaginary friends or a time from the past to a fishing village whose stories she's heard told. She finds a young girl with whom she shares adventures. The language and style remind me of the way my mom told stories. Published in my mom's childhood, this book may have been one she read and cherished....

my favorite part was when Greta was given the persian kitten as a gift for her twelfth birthday. my least favorite part was when Greta couldn't go back to her friends in Blue Cove again after her twelfth birthday. I found the story a bit boring.

This is a cute old-fashioned timeslip story. If you like that sort of thing (think Tom's Midnight Garden, Charlotte Sometimes, or A Traveller In Time) then you'll probably like this as well! If that doesn't sound like your sort of thing, then maybe you'll find it a little slow.Just a warning: this is called Fog Magic, but the fantasy is pretty low-key here. The magic simply involves going back (100 years?) in time. I'm sure that for modern readers, life in a 1940s or 19th century Nova Scotia fis...

"...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." "...they have to learn to be content and at peace shut in by their horizon." "The words of the gospel and the familiar hymns could smooth away years or centuries." These are just a few of the passages that "spoke" to me as I read this book.Wrapped up in this 107 page young adult book is a compendium of Maritime Canadian characters and beliefs. Fog is mystical, I know first hand. I have felt Greta's tingling excitem...