Children's Books
A Range of Children
BY ELAINE MOSS
HILDREN's books are written and illustrated C by adults, published and reviewed by adults and, indeed, more often than not, even bought by adults. Yet the books are Tor children, children of all kinds, and the danger one must guard against, in talking about them, is the danger of snob judgment, the danger of treating the whole thing as an intellectual exercise, of asserting what the child ought to like, with the inference that if he cannot come to terms with `the best,' then he may as well sit and goggle at TV. Happy the child who is absorbed in C. S. Lewis and Tolkein, who responds to poetry, who is developing a literary style of his own. All honour to the authors who nourish this child, for even if he is a minority CI loved this book,' wrote a perceptive nine- year-old schoolboy about a minor classic, 'but 1 don't think I would recommend it to my friends') he is the minority on whom the future of letters depends.
But our responsibility extends also, and more heavily, to the vast majority of potential middle- brow readers, children who like family stories, adventures, biography, non-fiction; they are less critical, so the interested adult must be the watchdog of standard. The subject of the book can be fairies, football or fossils; no matter. What does matter is that the book, like all the books selected for this article, should be good of its kind.
Every year the Library Association awards the Carnegie Medal to the book voted by children's librarians to be the most outstanding work for children in that twelvemonth. The most recent winner is Pauline Clarke's The Twelve and the Genii (Faber, 13s. 6d.), a book for book-lovers, both boys and girls, over ten. Any child who, like the vicar in the book, is a `Brontyfan' (Max, the eight-year-old hero of the book thinks this is an extinct kind of mammal until he is enlightened) will at once become ab- sorbed in this powerful fantasy, based on the imaginary discovery, under some floorboards in a Yorkshire house, of Branwell Bronte's famous soldiers, the twelve Young Men for whom he invented wonderful names and even more won- derful adventures. So intensive was the heat of Branwell's creative genius, the author assumes, that when the modern little boy finds the soldiers they are still alive; once liberated from the old rag in which they are wrapped. Butter Crashey and his company are able to take up their own characters and set off on a new series of ad- ventures watched over by the incredulous latter- day Genii (sic), Max. Gradually Max learns about the Brontes through the Twelve, who are as real to him as the Lilliputians are to Gulliver.
Girls who are sufficiently interested in the past to recognise the value of a genuine histori- cal document as opposed to a modern piece of historical reconstruction will appreciate Mrs. C. V. Jamison's Lady Jane (Hart-Davis, 13s. 6d.). Originally written in 1891 for the St. Nicholas Magazine, it is a wonderful picture of New Orleans society at that period. Through these pages in dead-pan seriousness comes the class- ridden social atmosphere; little 'Lady' Jane, delicate, musical, deeply attached to her blue heron and recognised as 'of breeding' by the artisans of the Rue des Bons Enfants, is a typical Victorian heroine, even to the way in which she distributes largesse to her poorer friends when, after terrible vicissitudes, she comes into her for- tune. Mrs. Jamison manages her plot most capably, though with the aid of more coin- cidences than modern writers would be allowed. Robin Jacques's dignified drawings will lead present-day children effortlessly back into the era of great-grandmama.
Twenty-five years later, and for younger American girls, of eight and over, Dorothy Can- field wrote Betsy (Bodley Head, 13s. 6d.), a book of enduring charm and good humour, gently satirical, but always, yes always, right-minded. Popular psychology was just rearing its head in 1916, and orphan Betsy, who lives in lap-dog luxury with her adoring aunt and great-aunt, is depicted as suffering from an overdose of under- standing. She is stifled with mental and physical care, but when circumstances make it necessary for her to be sent off to Vermont to stay with cousins who do all their own chores—`She didn't know what chores were, but she knew from Aunt Harriet's voice that they were some- thing very dreadful'—Betsy begins to live for the very first time. Country pursuits and uncom- plicated love feed her spirit, whilst her share of
THE SPECTATOR, JUNE 7, 1963 household duties and some adventures in which her resourcefulness is put to the test help her to mature. Betsy is good, light, wholesome American reading. Also for younger children is My Horse Says' a most original first book by Mary Schroeder (Chatto and Windus, 15s.). Elizabeth Warner, the heroine, is a quite ordinary little girl with (0 most unusual fantasy friend, a white horse called ,, Prince. Prince, when summoned by Elizabeth, is inclined to make prophetic pronouncements on the family's fortunes and, since Elizabeth la' sists on pointing out the accuracy of these, her two older brothers, who would like to disni0 Prince as mere kid's stuff, don't quite dare:, do so. In fact, when Elizabeth announces, 1 horse says . . .' they begin to take notice and it is Prince's extraordinary directions, erYP1111 clues in the treasure-bunt tradition, Wh,,lef eventually lead the Warners to Monksilver, their new home. A subtle half-magic pervades te charming book, a mood enhanced, as in works of Lewis Carroll, by the blunt eart wisdom of the minor characters. Though ni,,etio is a wistful sense of life-gone-by about neglected garden of Monksilver, there's notlasinister about Mary Schroeder's book, Winifred Mantle, writing a first-rate advent`„evare story for boys and girls of nine to elevebe Tinker's Castle (Gollancz, .12s. 6d.), makes , flesh creep on purpose. The wits of a grouP bright but innocent children, a cat and a monk g are pitted against those of a smooth, caleullf gentleman who will stop at nothing in d to cheat one of these children, a boy Canoe Philip, out of his inheritance. Winifred Mati is a mature writer who creates racing plods children with depth of character, backgrouoi which stick in the memory, and adults, both gag and evil, who are larger than life, as indeed adults seem to the young. In his latest book, Polly and Oliver 0esiegeitio (Cape, 12s. 6d.), David Scott Daniell writes.ant much the same audience, alert but linPati to for action, as Winifred Mantle's. Listeners Children's Hour will know that Oliver Crad oo is a drummer boy in the Peninsular Warpoil Polly, his cousin, is the daughter of Serf'oot Trott, also of the I 1 1th Regiment of with Polly's imagination and ingenuity, couPleudig Oliver's sense of duty and his courage, are ta. brought into play as these resourceful Cnufroo disguised as Spanish vagabonds, escape coge besieged Albencia and bring a vital rile'filis through the French lines to the General. ad is a rather short book, but it moves well ovet• the historical detail is accurate, but neverioroet powering. Every sergeant, general, druffii,in$ boy, Spaniard and Frenchman is given s,.essive individuality in William Stobbs's imp drawings. The battle over whether books need to be wIradi, specially for the adolescent still rages sPas,.o ;13 tally. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the'tives wealth of adult material that the over-tµtp can read with profit, publishers continuee tor publish for this age range—and they raal din; case this season with three books of oulst: seen merit which might otherwise never hay,,ionce' the light of day : a book about a horse, a s'es, fiction story and a modern Pilgrim's Pr°grichol° Horse-lovers have a classic runner 10/00 Kalashnikoff's new book. It is called obit (O.U.P., 12s. 6d.) and it tells the reinaardtes, life story of a real horse. Because he nanagelf in the third person, the author skilfully rrinoslt to take a horse's-eye view of the Russian oftht and his lame son, of the Great War and .0 sch Revolution, without ever indulging I
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THE SPECTATOR, JUNE 7, 1963 mentality. Brought up in Siberia himself, Mr. Kalashnikoff's love of rural Russia, its frozen hills and icebound lakes, its peasants and its animals, shines through his book, which is illus- trated with rare tenderness and beauty by Victor Arnbrus.
The most compelling piece of science-fiction for teenagers yet to come my way is Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (Constable, 13s. 6d.). The giant enemy in this story is IT, an all-powerful mind which saps the individual's thought process and lulls those it ensnares into a false security, leaving them no resistance with which to challenge Evil. Two of the children In the adventure belong to an eminent physicist who has disappeared; as a result of one of his nwn experiments he has accidentally found a Wrinkle in time and by `tesserace he has arrived „en a fearful planet where IT is omnipotent. Three weird spirits, the essences of man's quest for knowledge, help the children to `terser' and that the Only by supreme acts of courage and faith reach Mr. Murray, vanquish Evil and return to earth. This is a brilliant, frightening, but 1:ilIIosophically justifiable piece of work which I vie grip the intellectual young reader like a e.
Aloin the Forest, by Rosamund Essex (Brock- Plon Press, I5s.), is a religious allegory. Who isblind, blind, Bridget, who is lame, and eight- Hadrian, who is deaf, try to find their back te the world where there is work to be done. Faith in mankind's destiny is being put uothe test. The characters of these children are Aatnderr -n )/ il portrayed : Wystan is courageous, .Jent, intelligent and sympathetic; Bridget, motherly, loyal, intuitive and determined; Hadrian, imaginative, lively, adventurous and given to remorse. Ted, who is younger than Wystan but physically whole, joins these three and tries to become their leader, but he discovers that bodily attributes are not necessarily the most important. He lacks blind Wystan's perceptive- ness, lame Bridget's practical ability and deaf Hadrian's imagination—but as a member of the team his strength is invaluable. Rosamund Essex believes as firmly in group responsibility as she does in individual effort to overcome difficulties. Christopher, the saint in modern guise, can only help those whose will is to help themselves. Into the Forest is a story of tremendous power; the children are deeply observed and utterly real, their adventures hair-raising and absorbing.
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