C. ildren's Books
Fields and Vistas New
Br ELAINE MOSS
It would be a thousand pities if any boy over nine left The ahinty Boys, by Margaret Mac- Pherson (Collins, 13s. 6d.), on the shelf because the word shinty was meaningless to him. You won't know what shinty is unless you are a Scot, of course, and the author, who is a Skye crofter's wife, doesn't bother to explain the difference between shinty and hockey until she is well on with her story. But this is because she is so deeply immersed in the activities of the group of Skye boys whose efforts to collect money to save their beloved shinty team from extinction she is describing. Her enthusiasm is in- fectious and all-embracing; an author who feels for her locale and its children as Mrs. Mac- Phefson does cannot fail to carry her readers along with her, Gaelic or no Gaelic.
There are no grey skies or granite hills in Dolphin Boy, by Margaret, Mackay (Harrap, 12s. 6d.), an epiC story for boys and girls of eight to ten, set not merely against a Hawaiian backcloth, as so often happens, but right in Hawaii with its multi-racial inhabitants, its 'leis' of hibiscus flowers, its 'poi-dogs' and its age- old lament of `Ah-weii.' Kamuelo, the hero, be- friends a motherless dolphin calf, Wiki. The island children, having won Wiki's confidence, Play games with her and she, in return, helps Kamuelo's father to find the best shoals of fish. A tremendous climax comes when a tidal wave hits Hawaii. In prose as graphic as any I have met in a children's book, the author describes the peril of the onrushing watcr, and the even greater terror of its sucking Withdrawal. The fate of Wiki, stranded on the beach. becomes a challenge to the children who, with superhuman fortitude, carry her across the debris-strewn shore and support her in the shalk.ws until she can swim away on the tide. Peggy Fortnum, the illustrator, has a gift for endowing animals with unsentimental charm and the garlanded dolphin in this book is one of her' best creations.
The warmth of Sicilian sunshine permeates Renee Reggiani's The Adventures of Five Children and a Dog (Collins, 13s. 6d.), a de- lightful story translated with respect and sen- sitivity by Antonia Nevill. It tells how five starving Sicilian children and their dog make their way north to icy Milan, where their leader Will study to be a bandmaster, and how they finally win fame and food when their talents as a group of Sicilian musicians are' recognised.
Geraldine Spence's superb jacket will attract many children of nine or thereabouts to this happy book. They will not be disappointed. Neither will young cooks who are given Harriet and the Cherry Pie, by Clare Compton (Bodley Head, 13s. 6d.), an unusual book which combines a good story with some simple recipes, all be- ginning, 'Wash your hands'! This is a cosy book because the author creates her little girl heroine with almost uncanny accuracy and shows the reader Harriet's world through Harriet's eyes. And to Harriet, who thought that going to live with Great Aunt Sophie would mean an adjust- ment to terrifying Victorian convention, the discovery that Great Aunt Sophie likes to be called Sophie and lives over her little home-made cake shop, The Cherry Pie, is both a relief and a delight. The story, which tells how Harriet brings publicity to The Cherry Pie and saves its tottering finances, comes second to the atmo- sphere of warm cakes, golden omelettes and red-check tablecloths to which Harriet falls cap- tive. Charles Keeping, who illustrates, under- stands that little girls of character are often attractively ugly.
Emma Smith, a prize-winning writer for adults, has never written for children before, but with Out of Hand (Macmillan, 15s.) she ,seems likely to begin at the top of the ladder. This surely is every child's book, boy or girl, aged nine to twelve. It is unswervingly true to the different codes of reasoning which govern adult and juvenile action and it shows how a family of children, acting in all good faith to protect their ailing elderly Cousin Polly from the attentions of a pair of spindly spinster sisters, are as wrong about the interfering Miss Collinses as the poor distracted Miss Collinses, also acting in good faith, are wrong about the 'out of hand' children. Dicky, the ringleader of the four children, is the catalyst of Emma Smith's theme. He saves Miss Eileen Collins from a fire in
Cousin Polly's attic. "You were very brave, Richard," she says. "You saved my life." "Did I really?" Dicky replied, surprised and with a feel- ing of shame because what he could remember wanting so desperately to save was Cousin Polly's house.' This book is full of all the ingredients children love : an amusing, warm-hearted elderly woman, camping in the hills, a stray dog and passionate devotion to a cause, but it is its unusual theme and the skill with which Emma Smith develops it which makes Out of Hand a book of rare quality. Antony Maitland's illus- trations catch the many moods of this story.
Older girls are less well catered for than usual this season. Margot Benary's A Time to Love (Macmillan, 13s. 6d.) is a good clean romance set in Germany in the closing years of the Thirties. Miss Benary's mixture of young love with the spirit of liberalism under pressure from totalitarian government gives food for thought as well as for the emotions, but there is a lack of spontaneity in this book which makes it, in comparison with some of this author's earlier writing, disappointing. Eleanor Spence's theme in The Green Laurel (O.U.P., 12s. 6d.) is home- making, and the lesson her heroine, Lesley, has to learn is that a home is not merely a house with roots, as she had imagined, but any place containing people with roots. Lesley's family, are Australian fairground folk living the nomad's life in a tent until her father becomes ill. The family then has to settle in a poor area of Sydney and the book describes Lesley's adjust- ment to the unforeseen difficulties of her dream- come-true. This is a gentle book in which the author uses stock situations, but develops them along unusual lines.
For older boys The Boys' Bedside Book of Humour, edited by Eric Duthie (Heinemann, 21s.), contains a healthy mixture of all those warring ingredients which make adolescent boy- hood so hard for the rest of the family to stomach—first love, crazy inventions, extra- ordinary speech, incipient sensibility and school. Mr. Duthie has found his material in the work of authors of maturity, Frank O'Connor, Lee Gibb, Peter Fleming, James Thurber, to whom the schoolboy is subtly introduced. More comic verse would have been an advantage, and that
this anthology errs on the conservative side one look at E. W. Hildick's Birdy Jones (Faber, 10s. 6d.) will demonstrate. For Birdy Jones is 1963 in every stroke of the pen, fast-moving, racy and alive, absolutely in tune with modern youth and written with the gusto and humour which boys of eleven up relish.
The young opportunists of Birdy Jones are far away from the world of the contemplative boy which Rosemary Manning explores so skil- fully in Arripay (Constable, 13s. 6d.), an historical novel in the Alfred Tressider Sheppard tradition with a theme which is, perhaps, more pertinent today than at any time in the past: every man has his place, she argues, and if that place is not with the herd, then he must have the courage to plough his own furrow alone. Adam Morden, youngest son of a seafaring family, is destined to be a priest. The other boys from the Dorset village, all of whom go to sea with the pirate Harry Paye (the period is a break in the Hundred Years' War when piracy was regarded as patriotic by the English king), mock Adam and torment him.
For Adam the problem is dire. He does not want to be a priest, although he loves the scholarly Father Hilary who teaches him his letters, but when he is taken on as a ship's boy for one voyage with Paye's fleet, the murder, the bloodshed, the lawlessness of this other way of life sicken him. When his only friend, Nicholas, is killed trying to protect Adam from his sworn enemy, Adam, with the help of Father Hilary, finds a middle course, a course which other boys may laugh at, which may not quite satisfy his mother,, but which will bring him peace and contentment. This is a story in which moral and spiritual 'values play a large part, yet the characters, like those in a mediaeval miracle play, are earthy and lifelike, the passions full- blooded. The illustrations, by Victor Ambrus, are as clear, honest, meaningful and accurate as Rosemary Manning's text.
Previous page
