George MacDonald once declared, “I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or 50, or 75.”

The Day Boy and the Night Girl is a splendid example of such writing. With words of wonder, beauty, and adventure, and with acute spiritual insight and sensitivity, MacDonald spins an enchanting tale of two children, a boy and a girl, who grow up from infancy in the castle of a witch. Unaware of each other’s presence in the castle, the children are victims of an unnatural design upon them, in which the boy is never to know the night, and the girl is never to know the day. The boy is therefore scrupulously compelled to be indoors before sunset. And the girl is locked away in the dim, forlorn chambers carved in the rock beneath the castle. It is not until they reach adolescence that the two meet, quite unexpectedly, and quickly become aware that they must rely on one another if they are ever to escape the cruel and violent fury of the witch.