Tomboys All
Meet Mary Kate. By Helen Morgan. Illustrated by Shirley Hughes. (Faber, 9s. 6d.) Madicken. By Astrid Lindgren. Illustrated by lion Wikland and translated by Marianne Turner. (O.U.P., 12s. 6d.) WE all like to read about ourselves, but a favourably distorting mirror is naturally more welcome than an exact copy of our daily trivia. The whole thing needs a bit of judicious polish before the reader can really enjoy identifying with the hero.
Books for infants are specially prone to stulti- fying normality because we know that to them routine is synonymous with security. Helen
Morgan's Meet Mary Kate is a chronicle of ordinary events which none the less manages
to avoid the trap of monotony. She presents her story with a loving solemnity which re- spects the importance that a small child attaches to all its actions. She describes the thrill of having visitors, the dangers of a solitary walk, the absorbing interest of an aunt's bedroom. Mary Kate is just four: her new birthday doll must accompany them on important outings, like going to the station to meet guests. It is a calm, enclosed world which yet has enough incident to keep her mother from yawning.
The same feeling of love and security emanates from Madicken, by Astrid Lindgren. The six- year-old heroine is a traditional tomboy, always getting into scrapes through high spirits and thoughtlessness. There is a brief respite from punishment when she invents a scapegoat school- fellow to be responsible for all her pranks. Madicken is much beloved by sensible parents who respect the fund of vitality that causes trouble. Some good chapters describe traditional Swedish festivities. Father Christmas arrives in a real sleigh, his bells echoing across the great silence of deep snow.
There is an attractive old-world charm about the inhabitants of Elizabeth's dolls' house. Helen Clare's fifth book of stories about them, Five Dolls and the Duke, describes what happens when an important visitor arrives—in a sedan- chair. Elizabeth has the enviable power of be- coming the same size as her dolls, so she can share in their activities. One day the dolls have a craze for making hats out of milk-bottle tops. When Elizabeth tries one on, she disappears inside it, but resourceful salesdoll Vanessa sug- gests that it would make a good disguise. Then they have such a craze for letter-writing that the toy pillar-box almost overflows and the monkey quickly has to become a postman and deliver them back. Such ingenious adventures will intrigue small girls, even if they are not householders themselves.
William Mayne's customary invention has de- serted him in Plot Night. A gang of youngsters stake their claim to build a bonfire on Guy Fawkes' night, but the Smokeless Zone and a rival gang make their job almost impossible. A bossy girl leads the gang and the others timidly condone her petty autocracy. Passwords and truce-flags are duly introduced, but in a most half-hearted way. The book mirrors the petti- ness of children when thrown back on their own resources in that semi-savage period of their first years at school. Any child who seeks imaginative stimulus in fiction should avoid this dreary reflection of his everyday self.
Barbara Willard's three schoolchildren are slightly more civilised. The Dippers and the High-Flying Kite is designed for readers from five to seven, though I think the story's charac- ters would have to be a good deal older than that to climb rocks by themselves. Heroine Tina is virtually an orphan, because her mother is dead and her explorer father missing in a distant jungle. She boasts defensively about the skills she_ has learnt from him and thoroughly aggravates the neighbour boys who have been told off to treat -her nicely. It's a competent morality tale.
Janet McNeill's stories, Try These for Size, are far removed from the world of boys and bashings. Her whimsical tales take in birds and giants and recalcitrant shoemakers and a naughty duchess who takes off her shoes and stockings to paddle on the moors when she should be presiding over a Sale of Work. The stories have abrupt, clever endings which don't always seem inevitable and the illustrator has a strong line in grotesque old ladies. I doubt if anyone under ten would appreciate the sophisti- cation of this book.
Ian Serraillier keeps the plums, for last in Happily Ever After, a collection of assorted poems. There are two good cautionary tales— one about death by Breakfast Cereal; the other about Brewster Dick, whose deprived childhood meant that 'he soon hatched out against society/ The grudge that caused his impropriety.' Then there is the 'Witch in a Fix' and 'After Ever Happily,' a love-story by a mediaeval poet who literally knew his subject backwards. Good lines in some poems about the sea capture the strange, wholly modern, pleasure of investigating the underwater world: 'Those pearls were my breath,' and describe the fun of racing along the beach on a stormy day when 'the rising gull-tossing gale/Was whipping the foam from the waves like froth from ale.' Brian Wild- smith's illustrations are best in the simple sketches of mouse and hedgehog which recall the exotic ABC he published last winter.
ANTONIA SANDFORD
Previous page
