Since Mrs. James stories are so short I thought I would write a general review of all her stories that I have read rather than a detailed review of each book.
As is claimed in the description of her books, her books are clean. They don’t contain any steamy “romance” or inappropriate descriptions, etc. That said, that doesn’t mean that none of her stories have bad characters who try to push the limits of purity etc. It simply means that those things don’t actually occur in the books themselves. Overall, the thing you should worry about, if you want something to worry about ;), is the amount of kissing and the short length of the stories.
While short stories are enjoyable, they can rush things along quite a bit, which means that sometimes you find characters kissing when you feel as though they were just introduced to each other. For an older reader, this can be overcome by reason and realization that short stories take liberties (or appear to) since they have much less time to present a plot to the reader. However, for younger readers, this may be a bit influential, so caution should be used. We want youngsters to be given the idea of relationships as serious undertakings, not ones that should be entered into lightly on short notice.
That said, while the short story side-effects may portray the idea that throwing everything into a relationship on short notice is alright, Mrs. James does a wonderful job of showing the importance of integrity in relationships. While her novels deal with younger characters, she always seems to bring those characters together in such a way that the prologue always lets us know that they got married and had so and so many children. I was surprised at this aspect since I’d been a bit blinded by the short story side-effects. This is what made her stories even more appealing to me. She writes interaction between couples (before and in the midst of relationships) very well. You get to see them interact in ways that real people in real situations might. So it’s not all “romance”. Furthermore, characters encounter trials and struggle with different things. They don’t have perfect lives. In fact, more often then not, they realize through the course of the book that their are bad habits they should work to improve.
Last say, overall these are pretty great short stories. If you aren’t worried about a little kissing etc. most of Mrs. James stories should be delightful short reads. I would advise at least reading a few of them yourself (which should take long since they are short) before letting one of your youngsters read them (older should be alright though).
Don’t be satisfied with mediocrity!
