The Swans Fly Over

There is no one who can record more vividly and precisely than Mrs. Uttley the important happenings of childhood and the exciting things in the countryside that can still be seen, heard, felt, and tasted by those whose senses are alive. In this book she has more to tell of the life she knew as a child in the northern counties - the busy life of the farm and the fields and the woods - and she mixes with these memories her keen-eyed and knowledgeable observation of the Buckinghamshire she knows today - the Chiltern hills, swans upon the Thames, stones from the Icknield Way. Especially fascinating are chapters on lore connected with flowers and on traditional games and rhymes.

Mrs. Uttley know the richness and wholeness of life: the unbroken line of development between the awakening of the senses and of intellectual curiosity in childhood and mature knowledge and experience; between the simple wisdom of rural life in the England of the past and the scientific explanations of today. She writes from a full life and a full mind.

C.F. Tunnicliffe's fine illustrations adorn and illuminate the book.