[Margaret Thursday] is a forthright, determined extrovert with a life of her own apart from the story [of Thursday's Child]. her words and actions are a constant surprise and delight, and Miss Streatfeild never makes the mistake of solving her identity, though her resounding success on the boards at the end as Little Lord Fauntleroy may be intended as a clue. The rest of the story is less successful. No doubt orphanage matrons were greedy and villainous, but the enormities come not as social revelations but as piling on the agony. No doubt countesses occasionally noticed their understaff with kindness, but the story of Margaret's friend Lavinia and her two little brothers at the orphanage, whose noble descent is revealed by the Earl and Countess, is unashamed novelette, unworthy of that splendid creation Margaret Thursday.

"The New Books: 'Thursday's Child'," in The Junior Bookshelf, Vol. 35, No. 1, February, 1971, p...