The Little White Horse

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Parasol of Pain: Miss Heliotrope has one. Subverted slightly in that it's only shown to be a minor distraction (albeit one that helps greatly, as the movie's already over by this point and all that's needed is for the villain to see sense.)

In 2008, the book was very loosely adapted into the film The Secret of Moonacre, written by Lucy Shuttleworth and Graham Alborough and directed by Gabor Csupo. Starring Dakota Blue Richards as Maria, [5] the movie was mostly shot in Hungary and released in February 2009Loveday is a Merryweather cousin in the book. She and Robin are members of the De Noir family in the movie. The Little White Horse’ is one of a number of stories that Elizabeth Goudge wrote for children. It is set sometime in the 19th century, in the Devonshire countryside that the author so loved; and it is an engaging and old-fashioned tale, underpinned by both magic and faith.

I had never heard of this classic English book until a friend said it was the favourite book of her childhood . . . and, indeed, a "comfort read" well into adulthood. Now I see it everywhere -- and I marvel that I could have been unaware of it for so long. Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the movie, Maria clearly has a hard time coping with her fathers death and moving out of her home in London as opposed to the Angst? What Angst? of the book. Never in all her short life had she seen such wonderful trees; giant beeches clad in silver armour, rugged oaks, splendid chestnuts, and delicate birches shimmering with light. They had no leaves as yet but the buds were swelling, and there seemed a mist of pale colour among their branches—amethyst and chrome and rose and blue, all melting into each other like the colours of a rainbow that shines for a moment through the clouds and then changes its mind and goes away again.And, like the best of fairy tales, it has a few flaws that might disturb readers. One is Maria’s statement that she will marry Robin—this because Maria is only thirteen when she says this, and has not exactly had a huge opportunity to marry other people. It doesn’t exactly help that the book states that they marry about a year later, when Maria is fourteen and Robin about the same age, perhaps a couple of years older. That may have been an error on the writer’s part, and in any case, Maria sometimes seems a bit older than her actual age, and the marriage is an extremely happy one, with plenty of children. The third strike is the language. It's as contrived as an imitation of Jane Austen or the Brontes; it has the tone and diction of someone who is desperately trying to tell a fairy tale. Also, instead of saying that a character "exclaims" something, she says "ejaculated." I know, I should be more mature, but it was distracting. Everybody going around ejaculating all the time... it's just jarring. OH, and Maria [Sue] keeps going through all the book's events "with a beating heart." ...well, she's alive isn't she? Admittedly, the third strike is really against the editor who should've caught the vanity-pressness of the language.