It’s the first week of the two week long autumn school holiday here but we still have the builder doing his stuff all over our house so we haven’t been able to do anything exciting.
The weather has kept him back a bit because you can’t do cement work if it is too cold but at least it has been fairly dry for days now and we’re hoping that tomorrow will be the last day of the scaffolding and mess.
Looking on the bright side, no gallivanting around the countryside has meant that I was able to read May Sarton’s The Small Room in a couple of days. I read slowly compared with most people I think, but due to the fact that I don’t go out to work I can usually devote at least a couple of hours each day to reading.
At the moment I’m reading a Richmal Crompton Just William book, which I should probably have read when I was about 10 but I think that William at War is for children of all ages and I’m going to be starting on Ian Rankin’s Rebus book Let it Bleed shortly.
I think William at War is a collection cobbled together from the original volumes. If you really get into them, do seek out the original volumes, and read them in order. It’s fascinating how Crompton’s tone changes–the initial books are obviously in sympathy with the adults who have to put up with William. She gradually shifts over to a child’s eye-view of an adult world, and ends up poised perfectly between both. A really superb balancing act IMO.
And, of course, the books serve as a great record of the period–William’s preoccupations move from taming savages and establishing colonies to singing like the Beatles. I also find Crompton’s prose quite remarkable, especially given how children’s lit. is often dumbed down in vocabulary and scope now-a-days.
Niranjana,
I went to my local second-hand book shop recently to look for Crompton books. They had one grotty ex-library book priced at £25!! Outrageous, so I ended up buying a boxed set of 10 used William books from Amazon – only £15 total and in very good condition. It is annoying though because I’m sure my brother had lovely hardback ones from his 1950s childhood. I think that is why I didn’t read them as a child because my brother is called William, he’s 5 years older than me and he was a complete nightmare as a wee boy. I thought the books would be too much like real life for me. I’m looking forward to getting into them all eventually, now it’s pure nostalgia. I know what you mean about modern children’s lit. I always wanted to stretch their minds when my boys were young so I think things should be pitched just slightly over their heads, it makes it more interesting if they are learning without really realising.
Katrina