Tolly comes to live with his great-grandmother at the ancient house of Green Knowe and becomes friends with three children who lived there in the seventeenth century.
An English girl, a Polish refugee, and a displaced boy from the Orient explore an island-strewn river flowing past the ancient manor house of Green Knowe.
A strange friendship develops between a young Chinese refugee who is spending the summer at Green Knowe and a gorilla who has escaped from the London Zoo.
