The White Stag is one of several of Seredy's stories for young adults that involve characters, themes, and settings from her native Hungary. The Good Master, perhaps her finest book, tells the story of Kate, a spoiled city girl from Budapest who is transformed by the wholesomeness of farm life when she goes to visit her uncle Marton Nagy, the good master, and his family on the Hungarian plains. The Singing Tree con tinues the story of the Nagy family during World War I, when Uncle Marton is drafted into the army and his son Sandor must learn how to run the farm in his father's absence.

Seredy has also written some books with American settings, but they lack the strongly conceived characters and themes of the books about her homeland. In two of her later works, Philomena and Lazy Tinka, Seredy again returns to Old...