The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge was first published in 1946 and it won the Carnegie Medal for that year. I wee while ago I decided to start a personal project to try to read as many of the Carnegie Medal winners as I can get a hold of. This literary award was set up in 1936, to be awarded to the best book for children or young adults each year.
The setting is Moonacre Manor in England’s west country where 13 year old Maria Merryweather has been sent after the death of her parents. She’s accompanied there by her governess Miss Heliotrope and is welcomed there by her cousin Sir Benjamin Merryweather whom she had never met before. He’s rather large and old and wears a ‘cauliflower’ powdered wig, but he’s very kind and in no time Maria feels completely at home despite there being many mysterious goings on at Moonacre. It’s all a bit fairy tale-ish as to begin with Maria never sees anyone, but clothes and food appear in her room mysteriously.
But not everything is perfection at Moonacre. The people in the village are being menaced by strange dark men living in the woods who steal their sheep, won’t allow them near the beach and trap rabbits and hares which they know is illegal and gets Sir Benjamin into trouble as the traps are on his land.
This is a charming read with lots of lovely unusual characters, including the dogs Sir Wrolf and Wiggins and a mysterious white horse.
I think that the author had a whale of a time thinking up all the unusual names of her characters, the writing is silvery with descriptions, and like most British books written during WW2 and up to the mid 1950s when the country was stuck in strict and punishing food rationing, the book is just full of descriptions of food and feasts. I suppose if you couldn’t actually get the food to eat, reading about it was the next best thing.
