HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY

Rating:
Summary: I wish I could read it for the first time all over again
Review: The warmth and love Richard Llewellyn had for his Welsh family and the coal-mining village where he grew up has remained with me for maybe 40+ years since I first read it. Written in 1939, How Green Was My Valley has become a bittersweet coming of age tale of a boy growing up in a large family in a small town, and of his love for his lovely sister-in-law. This is a coal mine story, so you just know there's going to be some tragedy involved, and of course there is. The story is written from the depths of the author's heart and soul. No wonder it won an Oscar when it was made into a movie.
If you've never read it, do it now. If you read it 40 years ago, read it again. It won't be stale.

Rating:
Summary: very emotional
Review: This book was a part of the curriculum in my sophomore AP English class. I went into this book expecting another "classic". In other words, a boring book that has some symbolic meaning that students are supposed to interpret. This is by far the best school book that I have ever read and quite possibly the best book I have read period. It is a moving novel about life in which the characters grow close to your heart and you become part of the Morgan family in an English mining village. The ending is not perfect, and perhaps there isn't as much closure as one would like, but then again, life isn't perfect either. This is what makes "How Green Was My Valley" warm the heart and haunt the soul. I will never forget this story as long as I live, and I will carry these life lessons with me forever. I reccommend this book to everyone, and my advice is to read it with a box of tissues.

Rating:
Summary: very emotional
Review: This book was a part of the curriculum in my sophomore AP English class. I went into this book expecting another "classic". In other words, a boring book that has some symbolic meaning that students are supposed to interpret. This is by far the best school book that I have ever read and quite possibly the best book I have read period. It is a moving novel about life in which the characters grow close to your heart and you become part of the Morgan family in an English mining village. The ending is not perfect, and perhaps there isn't as much closure as one would like, but then again, life isn't perfect either. This is what makes "How Green Was My Valley" warm the heart and haunt the soul. I will never forget this story as long as I live, and I will carry these life lessons with me forever. I reccommend this book to everyone, and my advice is to read it with a box of tissues.

Rating:
Summary: What memories are you creating for your children?
Review: This book was fantastic -- a wonderful discussion of family ties and bonds and the impact of change and "progress." Llewellyn brings you into the Welsh culture with his writing style and use of Welsh phrases. He portrays the Welsh struggle against greed, prejudice and big business through the different actions of each of the family members in a large close-knit family in a small, close-knit town. Although the ending is quite sad, you can't help still feeling hopeful as the son, now an old man, starts anew -- with his wonderful memories. It does make you wonder about the memories you are creating for your own children. A must read

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful reading.
Review: This book will make you wish you knew Welsh. The language just sings.

Rating:
Summary: A classic of the heart......
Review: This is a beautiful, warm, rich story of a coal mining family, the Morgans and their village in Wales. It was written in 1939. It portrays the changes and challenges faced by the Morgan family and the people of the village caused by the coal mines. The family is a strong, loving family, with strong moral views. The loving relationships between family, friends and the coal miners themselves are exquisitely described. The people in this story are so full of life and heart and so real that it is hard to think they are just the authors creations. This was an extraordinary and remarkable novel that will remain a classic for all time.

Rating:
Summary: This is a great book
Review: This is a great book. This is a wonderfull book. This is a marvelous book. This book is really a novel. This novel is great. This novel is wonderfull. This novel should be read be all true American patriots. This is a lovely novel. It is full of romance. It is full of compassion. This book encourages stong family ties. This book encorages a strong work ethic.

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: This is a superb nostlagic story of a boy and his childhood. It describes his beautiful village, his family and friends and many incidents which this boy has cherished for the rest of his life. The novel is touching and appeals to anybody crossing the limits of time.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and compelling
Review: This is a truly magnificent book, which tugs at the heart strings and takes us back to a time when the world was very different.

It is a lovely tale of a family which shines through good times and bad, through joy and adversity, and which ultimately provides us with a rich tale cleverly interwoven with some of the strongest characters in literature. In addition we have the magnificent Welsh country side, the horrors of the mines and the love of a family who cannot manage without each other.

It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and you won't want o put it down until you have finished it.

Rating:
Summary: among the very best
Review: This melancholic elegy for departed loved ones and the vanished way of life of a Welsh coal mining town is one of the most beautiful books ever written. The narrator, Huw Morgan, tells the story of the lives and loves of his extended family and their townfolk as their closeknit community disintegrates under the pressures of modern life and the decreasing profitability of the mine--from brothers who have to move to America to make a living or others who are killed in the coal pits, to the widowed sister-in-law who Huw loves for years but never tells, to Mr. Gruffudd the local minister who helps Huw through childhood paralysis & becomes his tutor, to Dai Bando who teaches him to box and most of all to the beloved parents who suffer long but love greatly. The language itself is lyrical and haunting, the story ineffably sad. But always, Huw reminds us that these remarkable people live on in him:

Courage came to me from the height of the mountain, and with it came the dignity of manhood, and knowledge of the Tree of Life, for now I was a branch, running with the vital blood, waiting in the darkness of the Garden ....to bring forth sons and daughters.

I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who were to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond.

And their eyes were my eyes.

As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever.

Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line that stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and Is Not Yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman, son of Man, made in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by the Will of God, the Eternal Father.

It is the permanence that these mortal souls gain through the medium of memory that ultimately makes the book uplifting.

GRADE: A+