Set in the Yorkshire dales, [A Grass Rope] is a treasure hunt, like so many of William Mayne's books, but with the difference that one of the characters, young Mary, believes so firmly in magic that her interpretation of events dominates the story rather than her parents's common-sense or Adam Forrest's grammar-school reasoning. (p. 140)

It is certainly not inappropriate to use the word 'magic' of a story where the author makes you aware of the irrational all the time, the poetic below the events of ordinary life, and does this while keeping his characters absolutely real, not eccentric or peculiar, but people with character and drive and personal idiom.

Mayne's particular contribution to the fantastic adventure is the way he makes the vision of certain of his characters override actual events. In [this book, which has a simple, almost hackneyed plot], the tone is set by Mary's belief...