[Margret's] experience as kennel-maid with the farm animals, the temptation to take a job in America, her inevitable romance with the landowner's son give continuity to ["Rowan Farm,"] a many-faceted, rather complicated narrative of family activities.

Like "The Ark" this is an uneven performance. It is frequently sentimental and even a little banal, yet it has little of the Teutonic self-pity which seeped through the earlier book. Its horizons are wider and there are times when the author makes the reader sharply aware of the emotional as well as the physical devastation which follows war. (p. 38)

How many readers of Little Women remember that it was set in a grim post-war period? The poverty of the March family is … evident, but it is the richness of character, incident, and above all, of spirit, which makes their story memorable. The same kind of feeling is left by [The Ark, a] German story of a refugee family whose happy life in Pomerania has been overlaid by successive war and post-war calamities, who begin the book making a brave new start in two attic rooms in a bomb-scarred town, and close it, with even higher hopes for the future, in a converted railway carriage on someone else's farm.

Mrs. Lechow, like Mrs. March, is a woman of parts, and her four children are lively and intelligent, eager to learn, and able to make a great deal out of next to nothing. Fourteen-year-old Margret is the central figure, but the others are made equally real, and their problems and friends provide a surprisingly comprehensive picture of post-war German life…. [Throughout the book Margot Benary-Isbert] communicates her pleasure in family life and in the strength and promise of young people, developing and maturing. The people are made vivid, almost visible…. There are several very moving Christmas chapters, and as an added delight, rather than a climax, the safe return of first Mrs. Almut's son and then Dr. Lechow from Russian camps, a return made probable simply because it hasn't been made a necessary pivot of the story. These people can stand on their own feet whatever happens, or wherever they might live—even the hint of coming romance between young Almut and Margret could be ignored by such well-established characters. Altogether, then, a book to grow on, with much wisdom and compassion to offer re-readers in particular. (p. 295)

The Junior Bookshelf, December, 1954.

In a different vein from The Ark and Rowan Farm which were two stories of postwar German refugees, [The Wicked Enchantment] takes life under more "normal" conditions in the enchanting little town of Vogelsang…. Real story telling, this has clever satire and the ringing clarity of German forest land. (p. 538)

Virginia Kirkus' Service, August 1, 1955.

As is the way of sequels, [Rowan Farm] is less perfect than its predecessor, The Ark, being more loosely constructed, more concerned with the immediate present, and probably attempting too much. It still has much to recommend it and the Lechows' projects and personalities are still worth recording. The story contains much that will please those in search of light entertainment and also contrives to deal with personal and public matters of interest to thoughtful adolescents—and it is the air of contrivance which keeps the book below the level established by The Ark. However, there are many good scenes and real, vigorous people…. Mrs. Benary respects her readers' right to the truth; she is not afraid to mention death and the existence of difficult problems, and by neither over-emphasizing nor under-stating, gives a balanced picture of post-war German life…. [The reforming zeal of her young characters] is necessary if the more permanent values of sympathy, hope and faith are to be kept alive, and Mrs. Benary is very much on the side of life. Her positive approach, her sanity and understanding, keep this book from floundering in the multiplicity of incident. (pp. 218-19)

The Junior Bookshelf, October, 1955.