The Court of the Stone Children by Eleanor Cameron

First published: 1973

Type of work: Fantasy

Themes: Family, friendship, the supernatural, and coming-of-age

Time of work: The 1970’s

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: San Francisco

Principal Characters:

  • Nina Harmsworth, an unhappy girl who has recently moved to San Francisco
  • Dominique de Lombre, a young countess from the nineteenth century whose possessions are displayed in the French Museum
  • Gil Patrick, the intense boy who studies time
  • Helena Staynes, the museum’s registrar, who is writing a biography of Antoine de Lombre
  • Mam’zelle Henry, the owner and chief curator of the museum
  • Odile, the journal’s author and one of the statues in the Court of the Stone Children

The Story

When Nina Harmsworth first meets Gil Patrick in the park, she has lived in San Francisco for four months but has made no new friends. Instead, she longs for the friends left behind in Silversprings. The crowded city where the streets look alike and the dingy apartment house with its musty food odors and lack of view repel and depress her. Her frenetic mother admonishes her to make friends, while her quiet father asserts that she is one of the solitaries, like him.

Nina has remained somewhat aloof to the other people in her class, choosing to focus on her long-range career plans. To Gil, a very intense boy she meets, however, she reveals her dream of becoming a museum curator. Although Nina’s parents do not seem to understand her need for a place to belong in the city, Gil does. Perhaps he is so sensitive because of his interest in a special project: the study of time. He suggests that she visit the nearby French Museum.

At the museum, among the furniture and possessions of others, Nina feels at peace until a strange young woman appears, announcing that she has been waiting for her almost two hundred years. In time, the young French woman, whose name is Dominique de Lombre and whose friends are the stone children in the museum courtyard, reveals her history and the unusual dream in which Nina’s assistance had been foretold. Only Nina can see and hear Dominique and her cat, Lisabetta.

These two young people have been brought together in what one character calls an intersection of time: one person from the early nineteenth century and one from the late twentieth century. Each has a compelling need. Dominique seeks to restore her father’s reputation as a just and honorable man. She fervently believes that her father, Comte Antoine de Lombre, is neither a traitor nor a murderer. Nina, for her part, needs to find a special place where she belongs. She also needs a special friend.

The search for answers to the mystery leads Nina to other people. Each encounter brings her new confidence. To Gil and his parents, she relates the prophetic dream of the stone children coming to life and ascending the stairway. To her new landlady, she reveals the existence of Dominique. Nina concentrates on subtle ways to influence Helena Staynes, the museum’s owner and chief curator, so that she will change her opinion of Dominique’s father; The biography which Mrs. Staynes is writing is to be the means of vindicating him. Yet Mrs. Staynes is not aware of the purpose she is to serve.

Once the mystery has been solved, Dominique disappears. Although Nina walks through the familiar rooms of the French Museum calling out to her, Dominique does not answer. The friend has gone forever.

Context

Eleanor Cameron’s earlier novels were aimed for the young child. In the Mushroom Planet series, especially The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954), readers find lighthearted fantasy stories whose characters fly through space, solve problems for other people, and happily return home.

In Nina Harmsworth, Cameron brings readers an adolescent heroine who is emotionally vulnerable. Yet there is another side of her character which the author reveals: Nina is courageous and competent. Cameron places Nina in an intellectual environment, which provides reassurance of the continuity of life and surrounds her with caring adults who help her resolve the crises she faces. Nina rises to the challenge and succeeds in her quest for identity and her quest to solve the mystery of Dominique’s father. Although she loses her friend to the past, she faces the future as a secure young person.

The attributes of Comte Antoine de Lombre—moral courage and a sense of justice—challenge the reader in any society. Timeless questions about the meaning of existence continue to haunt not only adolescents but adults as well. Barbara Wersba notes that the author has “not made a single concession to the conventions of childhood.”