Child labour
Benny Green
The sudden revival in the fortunes of William Brown, long moribund at the back of the cupboard under the stairs, is a brutal remind' er that, like it or not, television has become the most powerful disseminator of literature in our society. Two years ago I offered William to my own heirs but the eldest, then nine, said he found the text so archaic as to be almost inscrutable. And yet now that William has taken over the Sunday teatime audience with a panache which reminds us that one of the earliest volumes in the Brown Saga was William the Conqueror, Nine, Who has now become Eleven, is at one with Sig and Four; all three of them find that William Brown, enjoying this glorious autunm flowering on TV, is unmissable. He is the spokesman, they feel, for their generation; he is admirably uncivilisable, and combines the best of intentions with a congenital inability not to becatastrophic. In other words, they respond to him in the identical terms I did in the years between 1936 and 1940. The process which belatedly pushed the Browns from paper to screen is now working in reverse; Armada are reissuing the old William chronicles as fast as the TV poPu" larity will sustain the campaign. Six more of Richmal Crompton's works are now on the bookstalls (Collins/Armada 45p each), brazenly sporting a coloured cover showing the TV William looking suitably amazed in the conventional Stage School style. However; turn to the text and you come to the heart ot the marketing problem. The illustrations arde the original ones by Thomas Henry, and ha they not been, I for one would have volun' teered to bake custard pies for the beautification of the Armada management. I have 3 suspicion that it was those period sketches which once deterred my brood, and that noW they have received the reassurance of the TV series, and only now, are they inclined to conquer their suspicion of ancient palimPsests and forge ahead. In this way does television justify its own often hideous adapta" tions. What of the old-time mores which Suffuse the plots? I have before me William's HaPq Days, first published in 1930. On Page sisc_ there is a young woman dressed clo .s which my children find extraordinary; the family maid. On page twenty-six Williarie is wearing a straw boater; on Page hundred and forty-six there is a sketch Or:: butler. The text is scattered with sixPe _ norths, and clearly the world which
inhabits has less than nothing to do wi
• nce°' what Eleven, Six and Four have experie st.
in th
Does any of this matter? Not in the sligtlteorr Richmal Crompton may have been an11,,ed est prosodist; she may have been an insl " l:':on
children's writer; she may be a Mt children's writer; she may be a Mt leagues beyond Enid Blyton and company. None of this would have saved her from Oblivion. The really important thing, the factor which commends itself to my children and perhaps one day will commend itself to theirs, is that Crompton is a funny writer. She makes children laugh. If they have to endure the apprenticeship of an indifferent TV series in order to sneak into the pantheon, then so be it. The books deserve their new lease of life.
What, I wonder, would William Brown have made of Rosemary Harris's The Moon 'Ii the Cloud (Puffin 50p)? This is a prizewinner about the quest of Reuben to fill Noah's Ark, and teeters perilously at times on the edge of solemnity. That it never quite falls in is due to the genuine excitement of the quest, although Eleven, who devoured it
In a day, got the feeling that the text was a little too long for the strength of the tale t
had to tell. In contrast Huck and Her Time Alcichine by Gillian Avery (Collins £3.50) will probably leave the Ten-to-Thirteens wanting more. The title tells all that need be told, except that Miss Avery is one of the ,rriost accomplished children's writers of the seventies; in this tale she takes clever advantage of the fact that intelligent children find the very idea of Long Ago infinitely rotnantic. Followers of the James Roose-Evans saga of Odd and Elsewhere will receive the appearance (Andre of The Lost Treasure of Wales Deutsch £2.50) with mixed feelings. They will, I think, be charmed by the story, which Six knocked off in two sessions, but sad that this seventh episode in the series is the last. Roose-Evans struck an original vein in the Odd and Elsewhere stories, and it
may Yet be that Conan Doyle-like, he will find (he himself tempted to rescue his hero from
( e fate worse than death, which is, of course to stop having adventures. The Odd and Elsewhere books also prove the priceless ciVantage of finding your ideal illustrator. rlan Robb's drawings seem to arise out of the Roose-Evans text with an inevitability
which Six tells me he thinks to be some sort Sorcery Four concurs but thinks that
Blake is even better. Blake is his I wn illustrator, and in Snuff (Puffin 5)p), a haci,e, of mediaeval knightly knockabout, aremonstrates yet again thestrikingOrigifl ItY of his button-eyed people with their inartchstick legs and daft facial expressions. ph InallY a word for a classic of its kind, 0 e Cricket in Times Square (Puffin 45P). nee the juvenile is disabused of the idea ntriat the Americans have finally taken to the _oblest of all ball games, once they have rsPed that this is another story of sapient aria's, they will probably find George _xtu. 0. n's narrative touching, amusing and eofeiting. Narrowly sidestepping the pitfalls c)chrY, a children's book with subtle, se.gvornus and credible' characterisations. It is erneen years now since The Cricket in ,,res Square won its first award, and so far grim cha is wearing well indeed. One small uMbe; the Puffin blurb advertises the
book as appealing to a wide range of ages, 'beginning at seven and ending at thirteen.' Too arbitrary; there is no reason why readers should not delight in Seldon's Chester Cricket and his friends Harry the Cat and Tucker Mouse long after the thirteenth birthday has been left behind.
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