Brilliant blog on children's books

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Belly
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Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Belly »

This is an outstanding blog highlighting so many forgotten treasures. I have just read Jessamy below, great read. Love the idea of the cupboard and tree being key symbols and facilitators of the magic and time travel.

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If only I'd known about the Green Bronze Mirror when I wanted to engage my daughter when she was doing the Romans at school. See also review of When Marnie Was There. How many junior school children have heard of this? I'd say practically zero. It's so sad these books will soon be lost for ever and in no living memory:
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Belly wrote:See also review of When Marnie Was There. How many junior school children have heard of this? I'd say practically zero.
Thanks for the link, Belly. I've just read the review of When Marnie Was There - one of my favourite books as a child, which I've returned to twice as an adult. A haunting, thoughtful story which draws me in and keeps me spellbound right to the end.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Belly
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Belly »

One of my favourites too, Anita. I would love to try to bring some of these to the attention of children at primary school as books like Marnie are life enriching gems. (I made the comment re: family history on the blog - for me all seemed plausible but perhaps I am a bit blinkered when it comes to this book?)
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

I never questioned the part about the family history either, Belly. Everything falls into place so naturally and the ending is fitting and uplifting, while retaining a delicious poignancy.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Lawrie
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Lawrie »

Thanks for posting this link Belly, what a fascinating blog it is, with many old friends but lots of new books that I would have loved as a child - and doubtless still would. When Marnie was There was a favourite of mine too - it was so wistful and atmospheric without being terrifying like Marianne Dreams and Come Back Lucy which frightened the life out of me. The junior fiction library at my school was full of historical books like L M Boston, Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliff (is there an e at the end of her name or not?) and K M Peyton's Flambards which I loved and reread endlessly. I can't believe I've never come across Jessamy because I loved Barbara Sleigh's Carbonel books - I must look out for it.
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Eddie Muir »

I must admit I had never hear of When Marnie Was There but, from what you say Belly, Anita and Lawrie, it seems that it is a book that needs to be added to my "to be read" list. I shall be looking out for a copy from today. :D

Super blog, by the way. :D
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Belly »

When Marnie Was There is a book that makes me cry every time I read it. Not that it's sad just exactly as Anita describes and it pulls at my heartstrings & makes me weep. My daughter was very amused!

I am reading The Thorny Paradise - Writers on Writing for Children (while I remember as a bit of an aside) but the mention of Rosemary Sutcliff made me think of it: Geoffrey Trease, Catherine Storr, John Gordon, Joan Aiken, C.Walter Hodges, Jill Paton Walsh, Jane Gardam, Ursula Le Guin, Penelope Farmer, Barbara Willard, Phillipa Pearce and Barbara Willard to name only some on why they write. I did pick it up years back when I was studying but revisiting it definitely worth getting your hands on a copy I think. Some is fascinating and I am struck by how well these authors could write, it's quite humbling. It's dated and of its time but I quite like looking at children's writing from a 1970s perspective.

Joan Aiken is interesting, she writes with some displeasure about children reading 'Filboid Studge': "that, you may recall, was the title of a short story by Saki, about a breakfast food so dull and tasteless that it sold extremely well because everyone believed it MUST be good for them. Children, at an age when their minds are as soft and impressionable as a newly tarred road, pick up such a mass of unnourishing stuff - and what happens to it? It soaks down into the subconscious and does no good there, or it lies around taking up room that could be used to better purpose.)"

Joan goes on to say that the average child reads 600 books before they are 14 - nearly two books a week or so (she means children's classics or similar). She suggests this isn't very many really but does concede 'even television has its points' but 'it is a wicked shame if they waste any time at all on Filboid Studge'. What would she make of children today? :) How the world has changed. Mind you she's quite progressive about education thinking 'the trouble is we have taken away the role of children in the adult world. Instead of being with their parents, learning how: helping on the farm, blowing the forge fire, making flint arrowheads with the grown-ups, as would be natural, they are all shoved together in a corner..we have to find something to do to keep them out of mischief'."

She adds: 'And now I remember too, with frightful guilt, how pleased I was when my children learned to read; apart from my real happiness at the thought of the pleasure that lay ahead of them, I looked forward to hours of peace and quiet'. My children would likely disappoint in this aspect and I imagine are not the only ones :)

Rosemary Sutcliff's essay 'Lost Summer' is very moving. Turns out she had an illness which meant she was confined to a wheelchair for life (think this was her and I've not confused her with someone else) - she does not talk about it here. To me that makes her achievements and life all the more remarkable. She talks about the lost manuscript of a book she wrote at 20 and never forgot. She also says 'writing is much too much like gruelingly hard work, even though it is work one loves' have to agree with that. Of the lost book she says 'there was absolutely everything I wanted to put into that story. I knew nothing about the self-discipline required in a writer. I scattered delights on every page, and found, in doing so, the same kind of escape, refuge, what you will, from a very lonely girlhood'.

Self discipline...hmm. I am still writing for my characters to spring to independent life & start trying to change things as happens to so many who write. Not yet. Perhaps this is because I lack self discipline and the requisite talent. What's interesting as Enid's 'cinema screen' technique seems to work for all the writers listed above given what they say.
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

The Thorny Paradise - Writers on Writing for Children sounds like a very interesting book.
Belly wrote:(quoting Joan Aiken): 'the trouble is we have taken away the role of children in the adult world. Instead of being with their parents, learning how: helping on the farm, blowing the forge fire, making flint arrowheads with the grown-ups, as would be natural, they are all shoved together in a corner..we have to find something to do to keep them out of mischief'.
True. When reading books like Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series I'm struck by the extent to which the whole family worked together on tasks, including small children. I've seen that kind of inclusiveness in rural Morocco, where children of ten herd the goats, help harvest the crops and grind grain alongside their elders. I think such family/community togetherness is more likely to be found in a traditional agricultural environment than in a modern industrial one where members of a family do diverse jobs and there is greater emphasis on education.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Belly »

I agree, Anita, really interesting.
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by Lawrie »

Barbara Willard's Mantlemass books are ones I return to again and again. The characters are so strong that there is a genuine sense of bereavement when you pick up the next book and discover that someone who was in his/her late teens or early twenties is now old, or dead. There is a real sense of history and time passing which I don't think is done so well anywhere else, and I enjoy the way the politics and issues of the time are shown obliquely, in how they affect the daily lives of ordinary people. Some of my first literary crushes are in these books too!
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by anneshiningstar »

its a really cool blog :!:
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by anneshiningstar »

Lawrie wrote: . Some of my first literary crushes are in these books too!

thank goodness somebody else has had crushes on people in books i thought i was the only one_and felt a little embarrassed too! :oops:
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Re: Brilliant blog on children's books

Post by anneshiningstar »

Belly wrote:(quoting Joan Aiken): 'the trouble is we have taken away the role of children in the adult world. Instead of being with their parents, learning how: helping on the farm, blowing the forge fire, making flint arrowheads with the grown-ups, as would be natural, they are all shoved together in a corner..we have to find something to do to keep them out of mischief'.
anita bensoussane wrote: True. When reading books like Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series I'm struck by the extent to which the whole family worked together on tasks, including small children. I've seen that kind of inclusiveness in rural Morocco, where children of ten herd the goats, help harvest the crops and grind grain alongside their elders. I think such family/community togetherness is more likely to be found in a traditional agricultural environment than in a modern industrial one where members of a family do diverse jobs and there is greater emphasis on education.

i don't think its very nice i lived in a rural area in south america for a bout 2 and a half years till i came back to south Africa. even though we went to school we had to help the adults with every thing.i hated it! they had tons of baby's and instead of playing like children should be doing, we girls had to take care of baby's and carry them around.they were very chauvinistic towards the women after the men had finished eating they would leave the table,since i was the oldest child(about 12 or mabe 11 i had to clean the table and take the dishes to the sink. then latter on i had to herd the goats(some of the men couldn't understand how a girl could do that since they thought that was something only boys were capable of doing) and take them to the place were they stayed every night and i also had to feed baby goats who´s mothers did not want them,that was about the only thing i did like.but what was horrible for me was that they killed all the male baby goats that i had fed and they were like dogs and would follow me every were and i loved them..so i really think its horrible, and when the entire community knows each other and are always together they are always fighting and speaking behind each others back(at-least that was my experience)
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