Tag Archives: children’s fiction

The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams

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Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse Book Cover

The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams was first published in 1938 but I had never come across it before when I spotted this nice hardback copy of it in a secondhand bookshop recently, it’s a reprint from 2011. Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame describes the book as being ‘Timeless and enchanting.’

Uncle Peder makes wooden toys to sell, it’s his way of making a living. When he makes a lovely little horse with four wheels he thinks he might get five shillings for him, but nobody wants to buy his toys now since a new cheaper toy shop has opened up in a nearby town. Uncle Peder has to sell everything he owns to try to keep body and soul together, but when Uncle Peder falls ill the little wooden horse decides he will have to go out and sell himself to help.

So begins the many adventures and scrapes that the Little Wooden Horse finds himself in, things get really tough for him, but he never gives up. He hires himself out telling people he is a very strong and quiet little horse. He works down a mine beside the pit ponies, pulls a barge, works in a circus and even gets involved with pirates.  There’s a lot of strife involved but of course it’s all character building. Through it all he is determined to earn  money to take back to his master, Uncle Peder, and of course there is a happy ending.

Did any of you read this book as a child?

 

 

Home is the Sailor by Rumer Godden

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Home is the Sailor by Rumer Godden and illustrated by Jean Primrose was first published in 1964. I counted just seven full page colour illustrations, but there are lots of black and white ones, all in a charming style.

This is the story of a doll’s house, its tiny doll inhabitants and the children who play with them. There are disasters and adventures, and a moaning character named Morello, supposedly the doll maid, she’s quite bitter about something, just like the cherry of her name. Mrs Lewis is another servant, she’s a Welsh doll, made of celluloid so when she heats up she crackles almost like she is laughing.

Mrs Raleigh is the mother doll, there’s her daughter Dora, twin girls called Opal and Pearl, a boy called Curly the sailor doll and Bundle the ‘long clothes’ baby. The disaster is that the doll husband Captain Raleigh has gone, no fault of his own. Miss Charlotte is the doll governess and the children were planning a wedding for her with the doll Thomas, but another disaster befell him, so Charlotte is distraught.

This is a lovely book with the lives of the dolls and the real children intertwining. When Bertrand a young French boy arrives to stay with the family he has a lot to learn. His own parents had sent him to England hoping that the experience would cure him of his know-it-all arrogance and surprisingly it does when he ends up having Curly the sailor doll as his mascot.

Rumer Godden wrote several children’s books featuring dolls and doll houses, she was very much in touch with the lives and thoughts of youngsters.  This was a lovely relaxing read, for children of all ages. Thank you for letting me know about it Wilhelmina.

 

Astercote by Penelope Lively – The 1970 Club

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Astercote by Penelope Lively was first published in 1970.  It was aimed at young teenagers – probably, but is good for any age.

Sister and brother Mair and Peter Jenkins are living in Charlton Underwood, a Cotswolds village. They’ve moved there recently as their father has taken up a teaching post, so it’s all new to them. When their dog runs off into the woods they chase after him, although they’ve been told not to go into the woods.

That’s when they discover that the woodland had once been a village. The children discover that the Black Death had overcome Astercote and the area has been completely taken over by nature, but you can still see some of the cottage ruins. It’s all slightly spooky,  or maybe just atmospheric. Events take a strange turn when some of the locals get ill and are convinced that the Black Death has returned.

This one wasn’t quite what I expected, for some reason I had assumed that it was going to be historical fiction, but I enjoyed it.

The Rectory Mice by George MacBeth

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The Rectory Mice by the Scottish writer George MacBeth was published in 1982. He’s known mainly as a poet, but later in his life he wrote some novels and books for children, this one is aimed at 10 year olds I suspect but as always with good writing, it’s entertaining for any age. It’s illustrated by Douglas Hall. The setting is a rectory in Oby, Norfolk.

It’s 1914 and at least three generations of a family of mice are living very comfortably in an old rectory, the only thing that upsets them is the clanging of the bell which alerts the rectory servants. They are extremely clean mice (impossible) so their existence is unknown to the house inhabitants, including the cats. Everything is hunky dory until they hear of the beginning of the war. War always means a lack of food, they’re worried about their cheese rations.

But when one of the mice sees what turns out to be a zeppelin floating past they realise that there is more than just a lack of cheese to worry about. As time goes on a new man joins the staff of the rectory, he’s a German prisoner of war, and he brings with him something which is going to change everything for the mice.

This is a charming book although you have to suspend your disbelief as the mice can read and Grandfather Mouse often consults the dictionary in the library. It reminded me a bit of The Borrowers by Mary Norton which I loved.

 

 

 

 

Storm by Kevin Crossley-Holland a Carnegie Medal winner

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Storm by Kevin Crossley-Holland won the Carnegie Medal in 1985. I have a bit of an ongoing personal project going, to read as many of these medal winners as I can. This one has been utilised as a Reading Ladder book, presumably some sort of educational tool. This has whittled the pages down to just 46 and as it’s heavily illustrated it’s a very quick read indeed, and unlike any of the other Carnegie Medal winners that I’ve previously read.

Annie is a young girl who lives with her parents in a remote country area, her much older sister Willa is married and living in a town three bus journeys away, but she is going to be having a baby soon, and her husband who works away from home isn’t able to get home in time for the birth. It’s almost Christmas and Willa makes the journey to her parents’ house.Despite the age difference the sisters get on well, and Willa is able to tell Annie the details of a local ghost story about a man who had been murdered by highwaymen near the ford – hundreds of years ago.

Three days later a terrific storm arrives, and it looks like Willa’s baby is determined to arrive too, but the phone lines are down so they can’t get through to the hospital.

Annie is sent out into the storm to fetch the local doctor, she’s frightened of meeting the ghost, but a horseman picks her up and takes her to the doctor’s house, and all is well.

I think that this book has been somewhat shortened, edited to fit the Reading Ladder. It’s a well written story, and I like the illustrations which are by Alan Marks, but I’m not sure about pushing ghost stories onto children, so I find it to be a strange choice for the Carnegie Medal. I hope their teachers tell them that ghosts aren’t real!

Bill’s New Frock by Anne Fine

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Bill's New Frock by Anne Fine | GoodreadsBill’s New Frock by Anne Fine was published in 1989.  When Bill Simpson woke up on Monday morning, he found he was a girl. It doesn’t seem to puzzle his mother when she enters his bedroom, gives him a pink dress with shell buttons to wear, and drops it over his head! Bill’s father is late for work and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before he rushes out of the house. It’s all very confusing and mortifying to Bill.  At school nobody seems to be surprised at the change in Bill.

The blurb on the back from the Guardian says: ‘Stylishly written and thought-provoking.’

That it certainly is because Bill soon realises that girls are treated very differently from boys by the teachers and people in general, and it’s often not in a good way.

Anne Fine has won lots of awards for her children’s fiction. I think this one is probably aimed at age eight years and up. It’s a very quick read at just 89 pages and would be perfect for reading out to a class over the last few minutes of the school day, by the end of a week the book would be finished. It’s illustrated by Philippe Dupasquier.

 

The Runaway Summer by Nina Bawden – 20 Books of Summer

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The Runaway Summer by Nina Bawden was first published in 1969 and it’s one of my 20 Books of Summer. The book is/was aimed at older children.

Mary’s parents are getting divorced and during the school holidays she has been sent to live with her Aunt Alice and grandfather who live on the coast, while everything is sorted out. Mary is premanently angry about the whole situation, she has no friends in the area and she knows that she’s behaving very badly towards Aunt Alice and Grandfather, but annoyingly they are very understanding, which only makes Mary feel worse!

In a fit of rage Mary runs out of the house and heads for the sea front where she gets into more trouble as she’s so angry she decides to steal some sweets, but her shoplifting has been seen by young twin sisters who have run away from their older brother Simon. He’s the eldest of a large chaotic family and their father is a policeman!

On one of her trips to the beach Mary watches a small boat coming towards it, when it reaches the shingle two dark men jump out and help a young boy out too. It all seems strange, none of them are dressed for a trip in a boat and they have suitcases, when they get on the beach the boatman sails off again. The young boy has a damaged arm and as the men make their way along the beach, he’s left behind and Mary can see that he’s crying.

But in no time the men are picked up by the police, and Mary decides that she must help the young boy and hide him from the authorities, but she’ll need help from Simon.

As you would expect fromm Nina Bawden this is a really well-written book, but I found myself checking the details about when it was first published and I must say that I find it fairly depressing that she was writing about illegal immigrants in small boats – and it’s still a huge problem and very much in the news 55 years later.

It turns out that Krishna had been flying from Kenya to London to stay with his uncle, but there was a deadline to do it legally and due to plane delays he had missed it, and so began all his troubles.

My  20 Books of Summer list is here. This is the sixth book that I’ve read on the list.

 

 

 

Redheads at the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

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Redheads at the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer was first published in 1964, but my copy is a very recent reprint by Girls Gone By.  This one is a bit of a departure from the usual Chalet School series as it’s more of a thriller than boarding school story.

It begins with Flavia and her step-father travelling on a train on the way to the Chalet School. Flavia has red hair and most people call her Copper for that reason, but her step-father explains she must use her real name at school and she has been enrolled under her original surname, instead of her step-father’s surname.

Flavia’s step-father is a policeman and one of his investigations has led to the hanging of a member of a vicious gang. The other gang members have sworn to get their own back on him, Flavia’s life is in danger, but to begin with she doesn’t know that.  The headmistress has been given all the information though.

From almost the beginning it’s obvious that there are nefarious characters hot on the track of Flavia, they know that they’re looking for a girl with red hair, but there are several such lucky girls at the school. Inevitably the wrong girl is nabbed! But of course all ends well eventually.

I enjoy these Girls Gone By reprints, there’s usually a short story at the end by a contemporary Girls Gone By writer.  In this case it’s  An Inspector Calls by Lisa Townsend. There’s also a few pages about the publishing history, notes on the text, and at the very beginning there’s a bit by Ruth Jolly about the apparently fairly regular appearance of girls with red hair attending The Chalet School,  there are more of them than would be expected in society. She also mentions other characters with red hair in literature, and that old chestnut that redheads are supposed to have a fiery temper, which of course had me rolling my eyes as a redhead myself, or as my mother described me – a strawberry blonde.

I almost feel a blogpost coming on about walking in a person’s shoes, because unless you have red hair you have no idea what it’s like! It is the only prejudice which is quite happily allowed nowadays, and features in TV adverts, where derogatory comments about skin colour definitely aren’t tolerated.

 

Operation Sippacik by Rumer Godden

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Operation Sippacik by Rumer Godden was published in 1969. The setting is Cyprus. Rumer Godden was on holiday there when she was told the story of a brave donkey and she decided to write it.

The men of the 27th Battery Royal Artillery were part of a United Nations force who were in Cyprus as part of a peace keeping force, trying to stop the Greek and Turkish Cypriots from killing each other.

Sippacik is a very small donkey which is owned by a small boy called Rifat, he had witnessed the donkey’s birth and had a strong bond with her, so when Rifat’s grandfather sold the donkey to the British Army Rifat was not happy, but money was scarce, particularly as Rifat’s father was not around to help on the family farm.  Rifat’s father has been a bit of a local hero, but he had been taken away by the Greek Cypriot police.

Rifat has been dodging school and when the soldiers realise that they can’t cope with the donkey’s awkward temperament it’s arranged for Rifat to live at the army camp and look after Sippacik. They get involved in a dangerous adventure.

This book was probably aimed at ten year olds, it’s entertaining and educational. I bought it just because it was written by Rumer Godden. She seems to have been inspired to write wherever she went on holiday, or moved to. In her old age she moved to Scotland to live to be close to her daughter, and I was impressed by the way that she obviously threw herself into the culture of Scotland and even managed to write in dialect in her book for children The Dragon of Og.

A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux

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A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux was published in 1978. This is one of the books that I was reading to try to get me into the mood for Christmas, but so far non of them have been exactly what I expected, anyway, this was still a good read, certainly a very quick read at just 73 pages and is probabbly aimed at older children really. It’s very slightly spooky. It has some black and white illustrations by John Lawrence.

The tale is told by the elder of two young brothers, Marcel who is nine years old. Louis is his younger brother (yes, that Louis). Their father had decided to take them to their home in Indian Falls to spend Christmas there, they’ve never been there before and driving through a blizzard is not the most sensible thing to do, inevitably they end up lost. As it’s  a very rural area and the few houses and businesses around are closed up for the season they’re in trouble, but eventually they see what seems to be a hotel or road house and stop to ask for help.

An ederly man invites them in, his name is Pappy apparently, and they end up staying overnight, but in the morning Pappy is nowhere to be seen, but he has left a Christmas card behind and they realise that the card is as good as a map, according to the boys’ father the building on it is an image of their holiday home, and they can just follow the road to it – which they do.

It’s Christmas Eve and the older boy, Marcel, notices that as night falls outside the Christmas card becomes dark too, and he has also noticed that there’s a tiny spot of light on the card which moves, he guesses that it’s Pappy moving around and he’s coming in their direction. Earlier when they had gone to cut down their Christmas tree Marcel had thought he had seen the strange man and he is nervous.

This is quite an atmospheric read, but all’s well that ends well.

I was just surprised that the author, Paul Theroux had written a book using his sons as the charaecters, like A.A. Milne did disastrously to Christopher Robin, but it doesn’t seem to have done Marcel and Louis any lasting harm, that we know of anyway.