I have reviews of three excellent children’s books for you today, each containing those magic elements necessary in all good children’s books: new surroundings, limited adult supervision, and unlimited imagination.
The Magic Summer by Noel Streatfeild actually made me understand why people love Streatfeild so much. I had never read any of her children’s books before, just Saplings, which, though children feature as major characters, is definitely an adult book. I had been told that Streatfeild wrote children’s voices exceptionally well, but there was little sign of it in that book. Here, on the other hand, the children come alive.
With their parents in the Far East, the four Gareth children are sent to stay with an eccentric great-aunt in Ireland. Great-aunt Dymphna has no interest in basic domestic chores or children and so, for the first time in their lives, the children are left to fend for themselves. The two eldest, Alex and Penny (ages 13 and 12), do their best to keep up the standards they are used to a home while their younger siblings, Robin and Naomi (10 and 9), are much quicker to recognize and embrace the freedom their great-aunt is offering. The summer is spent exploring and learning, occasionally terrifying themselves as they test the limits of their abilities. There is nothing fantastical about their experiences, which is part of what I liked so much about this book: the Gareths’ experiences are the same ones any child could have, consisting as they do of decidedly mundane tasks like learning to cook or memorizing a bit of poetry. No magic spell or secret portal necessary: just determination and a willingness to try new things.
The relationships between the children were especially wonderful. Though they all, to some extent, strike out on their own, mostly we see them together. They try to support one another but they also snap and bicker. With none of the pastimes they are used to available in their new surroundings, they become bored and bad-tempered. They act selfishly and then are ashamed when they realise they ought to apologize (but really don’t want to). They feel, in short, like real children.
You want to know who doesn’t feel like a real child? Tom from Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. I know people adore this book and will hate to hear any criticism, however minor, but they will have to forgive me. He is flat but the book is not. It is a magical story, about a boy who, while staying with his aunt and uncle, discovers that when the clock strikes thirteen each night in the lobby of their apartment building he is able to slip into the past. Rather than the dreary, rundown apartment building of modern times (“modern” here being the 1950s, as the book came out in 1958) he finds himself back in the days when the building was a family home, when it was surrounded by a large garden instead of other buildings, and when a young girl, Hatty, lived there. Most people cannot see Tom when he appears in the past but Hatty can and they become playmates. Night after night, Tom visits her but with each visit she grows a little older, years passing in what for him is a single day. Thought the ending was clear from the very beginning of the book, it still made me tear up a little. I am so glad I finally read this.
But the book I am most glad to have read, the one that entertained me the most, was The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton. Until recently, I had no idea that Berton, a Canadian historian, had written a children’s book. Apparently, my father could have told me as much: this was one of his childhood favourites, having been published in 1961 when he was six years old.
When “The Pollywog” (otherwise known as Paul) disappears from the playhouse, his four older siblings set out to find him. A manhole has been sawed in the playhouse floor and, lifting it, they find a tunnel descending into a mysterious underground world, full of green creatures who can only say “Og”. Or can they? As Penny, Pamela, Peter, and Patsy explore this foreign land, their fear and suspicion lessens with the more Ogs they meet. Not only are the Ogs wearing familiar clothing – dress-up items that had gone missing over time from the playhouse, in fact – but some even appear to speak English, learned from the cowboy comic books that the children love so much and which, like the clothing, had been stored in the playhouse.
I loved everything about this book. I loved the world of Og itself, with its giant tree-like mushrooms and its citizens who are happy to play make-believe all day, but mostly I loved the five Berton siblings. Like any children, they love the idea of a world devoted to imaginative play and, even more, adore being authorities on subjects the Ogs are most eager to learn about. But they also realise that sometimes fantasy needs limits and it can be just as exciting to discover real things as imaginary ones. This book is so fun and clever and well written that I can understand why Berton considered it his favourite of his works and why it has remained a favourite among readers for fifty years.
The Captive Reader 