No. 60 - The Little White Horse

Hello!  

Today I want to talk to you about Elizabeth Goudge's book The Little White Horse. The reason this post has taken so long for me to write, is because it has taken me since June to read this book!! The Little White Horse has both confused and delighted me!

    Not being a lover of fantasy stories as a child I think The Little White Horse had passed me by. To my shame, I had no idea what a classic it was; it won the Carnegie Medal in 1946, quite the accolade in the children's book world! Once I knew this, I set out with quite high hopes for this book, but found it a lot like Marmite! It seems you either love this book, or it's not to your taste! I'm in the latter camp I'm afraid, although it has had it's moments! 

    Now, the premise, as I understand it, (and bear with me here!) is that Maria, our heroine, has been sent to stay with her Uncle, Sir Benjamin Merryweather, because she is orphaned. She is accompanied by her stuffy governess Miss Heliotrope, and her faithful canine chum Wiggins. Although a nice change from London, there is another reason for her visit, which Maria must discover as her time as Moonacre Manor plays out. Something to do with moon maidens, a particularly nasty Frenchman, and lots of pink Geraniums! It's safe to say that I found this story really quite confusing, and if I'm totally honest, I'm still not quite sure about the finer points of the plot! What I can say though is that this book is truly bizarre, and for that reason it wasn't all bad!

    For a start it reeks of the Gothic and other classic genres! I found it channeling everything from Wuthering Heights to Dracula, with hints of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Secret Garden, and the Chrestomanci series, not to mention Five Children and It! It also has a time slip fiction feel to it too, which had me rather confused about what time period it was set in. It feels Victorian, yet there is an older vibe too (it took me way too long to work out that Maria's friend Robin wasn't a ghost!). Maybe the time period is undisclosed, who knows! It is fantasy after all! Or is it...

    This was something else I struggled with! I felt as though it was never fully committed to being a fantasy novel. Sometimes it was just normal, everyday life, and then there would be crazy moments, like when the cat shot great big, green beams of light out of his eyes! Yes, that really did happen! This book was full of surprising moments like that. Just when you think you're getting the hang of the story, Goudge springs another thing on you! 

You know Wrolf, the big old dog? 

Yeah..? 

Well he's actually lion, but no one ever notices!

What!? How can you not notice a lion walking about next to you, FOR MORE THAN HALF THE BOOK! 

    And then there was the unexpected, and frankly excessive use of the word cock!! The Men of the Black Cock (no laughing please!) are the Merryweather's sworn enemy, and their emblem is a big black cockerel. Whilst reading I came across cocks on people's shoulders, cock shaped swords, cocks on boxes, on boats! At NO POINT does Goudge use the word cockerel, and honestly, I think she did it on purpose! Let's just hope that her particular choice of vocab goes over the heads of the intended audience! It made me laugh though!! 

    The characters in The Little White Horse are wonderfully stereotypical. Maria is a spoilt child from a London household, used to the finer things. Miss Heliotrope the governess is the archetypal Victorian old maid and school mistress, and she's always getting Maria to practice her needlework, or read poetry. Although we do discover that Miss Heliotrope had an exotic past! Sir Benjamin is the usual big, blustery, jolly, aristocrat. He's not so keen on women, but dotes on Maria. And then there's dear old Digweed, the coachman/man servant, who scuttles around in the background like so many versions of this trope before him. The Old Parson feels like he is straight out of a Jane Austen novel! And the children of Silverydrew are always bursting into song like the chorus of children in an am-dram production! It's all very strange! The only characters that seem to break this conventional mould are Robin and his mother Loveday Minette. They are otherworldly, magical, and I'm not sure whether this is intentional or not. They almost feel like they've stepped out of another novel completely! It's safe to say that they were my favourite characters.

    But, despite the confusing plot, bizarre, if not slightly stereotypical characters, Goudge finishes the story quickly and neatly with 3 weddings. Long lost loves are reunited, Maria and Robin are married (despite Maria being, by my calculations, only 14!), and peace is restored to Moonacre Manor, the village of Silverydew, and the Merryweather estate. Goudge makes sure all loose ends are tied, and it's wonderfully predictable after the confusing chaos of the rest of the book! Everyone lives happily ever after! Hooray! 

    Overall, I found this book a confusing read! It's weirdness baffled me, but strangely this in itself was quite enchanting! If you think you have the patience then I suggest you try this book, but I think it appeals only to a certain kind of mind. I'm not a lover of fantasy and I think this may have been why I struggled with the plot so much. Even after writing this, I'm still not sure I totally understand what I've just read! 

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up, a book that I'm sure is on bookshelves everywhere, Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney

No.81 - The Hundred and One Dalmatians

I will begin with a word of warning, never, I repeat, NEVER trust a Disney film! As we’ve previously discovered in my post about Mary Poppins, Walt Disney changed everything! The characters you thought you knew are totally different when you read the book, even the story itself can be hard to recognise once you strip back the perky animation, catchy songs and overly polished storylines. So if you’re reading this humming “Cruella De Vil” (which I am!) then stop right now! There are no jazzy tunes in this story, just a tale of bereft doggy parents and the extent of their love!  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Dodie Smith’s The One Hundred and One Dalmatians, a classic of children's literature, not just a Disney film!

Now, I'm not criticising the Disney film, in fact it's one of my favs, but reading the book just makes you realise how many liberties Mr Disney took when he made his films. So let me start by telling you a few of the differences between the book and the beloved film.

Firstly, Perdita is not the mother of the puppies, this is instead a lovely dog called Missus. When Missus has 15 puppies and can't feed them all at once Perdita is brought in as a surrogate mother to half the pups. But her story is not a happy one. She is found starving on the side of the road, after setting out to find her puppies who have been stolen. So when Missus and Pongo's puppies are stolen too she goes through the grief all over again! You can see why Disney chose to leave this out of his film!

Secondly, the story is told mainly from the dogs point of view, in fact the humans barely even feature, and when they do they are referred to as the dogs 'pets', rather than the other way around. This is a nice touch, which gives the book a very different feel to the film. The animals in the book are cleverly anthropomorphised so that you follow their journey, and feel their emotions just as you would a group of human characters. My only complaint would be that, although written by a woman, the book is a little lacking in its portrayal of its female characters. Poor old Missus is as ditsy as they come!

One thing that doesn't differ from the film however, is the evilness of Cruella De Vil (I can't type her name without singing the song!)! She is horrid! In the book we are introduced to her long suffering husband, who is a furrier ( he makes furs), and we learn that she forces him to make furs out of anything she fancies! Unlike Cruella, he is not an evil mastermind, but stuck under the reign of his nasty wife! Another strange fact about Cruella is that she loves pepper, as one of the puppies finds out when he bites her and she tastes hot and peppery! Everything about her is vile and cruel, as her name suggests!

It turns out that Cruella is hoarding Dalmatian puppies at her ancestral home, Hell Hall. She is keeping them well fed and happy until they get big enough to be killed and skinned!! Using their own doggy communication system, the Twilight Barking (which you may remember from the film), Missus and Pongo discover that there puppies have been taken to the hall, and they set out to rescue them.... but come back with a lot more than they set out for!

This is a delightful book, and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone! The characters are beautifully written and the language and tone is in no way condescending to it's young audience. It is quite a grown up book in many ways, but the story has all the appeal of a children's classic. And what's more, there's a sequel!

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up is a collections of poems, something new to the blog. I will be looking at Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S Elliott.

No.85 - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken is a bizarre book. I'd describe it as a bit like Jacqueline Wilson's Hetty Feather, with hints of classic books such as The Secret Garden. Published in 1962, it also has stylistic echoes of Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden, published just five years earlier. Aiken's book is set in a completely fictional era of British history, ruled over by Good King James III, in which the Channel Tunnel has already been built, allowing huge packs of wolves to come through the tunnel into Britain and cause havoc! You can see why I said it was bizarre now can't you!? The first half of the book is rife with wolf attacks, which reminded me of both Wuthering Heights and Dracula. I felt that this book was full of little nods to other texts, whether this was intentional or not I don't know, but it made it all the more enjoyable. 

The story is a dark and mysterious tale, following the misfortunes of young cousins Bonnie and Sylvia. Bonnie is the richer of the two cousins, living in a grand house called Willoughby Chase with everything she could possibly want, and kind, loving parents. Sylvia lives in a small room in London with her elderly aunt, who is struggling to cope with looking after both of them on her meagre income. She sends Sylvia to live with her brother, Bonnie's father, and so the story begins.

Bonnie's parents leave for warmer climes, and her father leaves the two girls, and the estate, in the care of the new governess, and his distant cousin, Miss Slighcarp, who is bad news!! I won't give too much away, but she has her sights on the Willoughby Chase fortune! She instantly transforms life at Willoughby Chase, and telling Bonnie her parents have both drowned, she sends the girls to a school for orphans in a nearby industrial town. Here they are treated terribly, and it was this part of the story that reminded me of Jacqueline Wilson's book about the foundling Hetty Feather. Bonnie reminded me of Hetty in her bold and unbreakable attitude towards this cruel life, plotting escape, keeping herself well fed and looking after Sylvia too, who becomes very ill. Bonnie and Sylvia are helped to escape by Simon, a boy who breeds geese on the Willoughby Chase estate. The three of them travel up to London (with the geese) to find Bonnie's father's solicitor and put everything to rights.

The characters in this book are all really endearing, and we see them change over their adventure, particularly Sylvia who goes from being a very meek and fragile girl, to strong and confident character. Like a Dicken's novel, some of the characters names echo their personality traits, something that I think is useful in novels for children, signposting which characters to side with, and which to dislike! The governess is called Miss Slighcarp, as I've already mentioned, indicating her sneaky, and indeed sly, characteristics, and her accomplice is a Mr Grimshaw, who sounds instantly nasty! Mrs Brisket is the lady that runs the home for orphan girls, and is also in on the plot to steal the fortune. Her name suggests to me a strict and sharp lady, perfect for cruelly disciplining innocent children! In contrast to these characters, the friendly characters in the book seem to have names that echo nature, something that is portrayed as a positive force throughout the book (apart from when the wolves are around!). Bonnie's parents are Lord and Lady Green, an obvious link to nature and the earth, and on their journey the children meet Mr Wilderness the herbalist and blacksmith, and Dr Field, who are both very helpful. Lastly there is Mr Gripe the solicitor, whose name initially indicates that he might be a bad character, and we are not sure who's side he is on until the very end. However, it turns out that he had no idea about the antics of Miss Slighcarp, Mr Grimshaw and Mrs Brisket, and so the whole thing was a bit of headache for him, hence the name Gripe of course! 

Despite being a rather bizarre concept, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was a really enjoyable adventure story, with hints of other much loved children's books and adult novels woven into the narrative, and recognisable in the characters too. I would recommend this book for adults and children alike. It's a bit scary to start with, with all the wolves and mysterious men, but it becomes much more child friendly as the story goes on, and you end up really routing for the characters. 

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up, a classic picture book, Handa's Surprise.

No. 87 - Carrie's War

Hi all!

I finally got around to reading Carrie's War this weekend!

As I'd been avoiding reading it for such a long time I decided that I would try and read it pretty much in one go. Get it over and done with, you might say, not that I can tell you why I was so hesitant to read this book. I think maybe I'd just loss my motivation. I don't often read books in one go, it usually takes me weeks to finish a book, so I came away feeling a bit phased, like i'd been plunged into an alien world! However, this totally immersive experience did help me get to know the plot and the characters much better than if I'd read it in a more stilted way, so that was positive!

This book was not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting a fairly ordinary wartime story of evacuation. A domestic, wholesome, account of daily life in WW2, with a fair share of sadness too. Instead, Nina Bawden's book is a peculiar mix of Goodnight, Mr Tom and a Dickens novel; an interesting combination of domestic and the slightly uncanny. Carrie and her brother are sent to live in rural Wales with God-fearing shop keeper Mr Evans and his sister Lou. Aunty Lou is a lovely but timid lady, frightened of her brother's temper and very keen to please. Mr Evans is a strict, mean man, with strong religious and moral views. Carrie and Nick go to school with the other evacuees in the local chapel, and enjoy the fresh mountain air in their time off. These are all key elements that you might expect in an story about evacuees for the 8-12 age group. However, when the children are sent on an errand to Druids Bottom (no giggling please...), the house of Mr Evan's other sister, whom he disowned when she married, the tone of the story starts to change. On her death bed, Mrs Gotobed (the other sister), is looked after by her beautiful and mysterious housekeeper Hepzibah Green. Also living with the women is Mister Johnny Gotobed, a relative of the family with learning disabilities, and evacuee Albert Sandwich. It is here that it all gets a bit Dickensian! For starters the names have all the quirk of Dickens characters, and Mrs Gotobed has a slight Miss Haversham feel about her! In fact I think all the characters at Druids Bottom could have stepped out of any one of Dickens's classics. Also, due to their rural location, Druids Bottom is still living in the Victorian period, allowing for a clear contrast between the Evans' shop and the rural farmhouse. It is this other setting that made the book stand out for me.

Hepzibah Green is by far my favourite character, a caring, motherly housekeeper, rumoured to be a witch. She is always just about the serve up dinner whenever the children arrive, she is a gifted herbalist, and a very good story teller. She makes Druids Bottom a magical place, and it is around her that the story weaves itself, right up until the very end.

I don't want to give too much away, because I feel I've been doing that too much in my reviews recently, but this story is certainly set in two very different camps. There's the domestic, homely and fairly ordinary world of the Evans's and then their is the magical, valley setting of Druids Bottom, with its myths and intrigue. The actual narrative is also split between two worlds, the past and the present, as the main plot is bracketed by the older Carrie returning to Druids Bottom with her own family. This allows for a lovely little plot twist right at the very end of the book, which I wont give away!

This book was a total surprise, but I actually really enjoyed it! The cover of my copy says that Carrie's War is 'A heartwarming, unforgettable story', a sentiment I was sceptical about to begin with, but I've not been able to shake the characters and haunting plot quite yet. If you're looking for a book that explores what it was like to be an evacuee then this is not the book for you, the war is sort of incidental to the story. Instead this book is an emotional, intriguing tale of friendship, family and loyalty.

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up a firm favourite of mine, one of Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books.