John Rentoul has written a third article on underrated books, this time looking at underrated children's titles by famous authors:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/to ... ml?r=61012
The books listed (together with a few comments from the article) are:
1. Willy Visits the Square World, Jeffrey Archer, 1980.
2. The Clarice Bean novels, Lauren Child, 2002-06.
3. Stick Man, Julia Donaldson, and illustrated by Axel Scheffler, 2008.
4. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Rudyard Kipling, 1894. Short story.
5. The Elephant and the Flower, Brian Patten, 1970.
6. Minnow on the Say, Philippa Pearce, 1955. Better than Tom’s Midnight Garden, according to Wendy Smith.
7. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith, 1948.
8. The Painted Garden, Noel Streatfeild, 1948. “My absolute favourite as a child and no one else has heard of it,” said Sam Freedman. Isabel Hardman said A Vicarage Family, “also weirdly little known, is even better”. Lesley Smith preferred Thursday’s Child: “Flawed heroine, rags to success if not riches.” Debbie Welch liked The Fearless Treasure: “A mixed group of children are brought together to travel through history.” The Children of Primrose Lane is also good. Yet all anybody knows is Ballet Shoes.
9. The 13 Clocks, James Thurber, 1950.
10. Roverandom, J R R Tolkien, 1925. “Almost no one reads it because it isn’t The Lord of the Rings, and it isn’t set in Middle-earth. But it is a great children’s story with magic and the Moon, and the protagonist is a little dog named Rover. Kids love it. Classic fun” – Shaun Gunner. Also: Farmer Giles of Ham. “A little novel of the heroism of the English commoner, woven into Anglo-Saxon mythology. Tends to be missed because of Tolkien’s more famous works” – Marginal Gains.
Having read Philippa Pearce's
Minnow on the Say, I don't agree that it's better than
Tom's Midnight Garden but it's certainly an alluring story with a dreamy, lyrical quality. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it.
Neither do I think that
The Painted Garden is one of Noel Streatfeild's best novels - or any of the other titles mentioned (the only one I'm not familiar with is
The Fearless Treasure). If had to pick a Streatfeild novel that deserves to be better known, it would be
Apple Bough. It's a beautifully evocative book about child performers, their siblings and the impact on family life. I've read it umpteen times and it never fails to move me. I'm also a fan of
The Circus is Coming and
Tennis Shoes.
'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi' is an engaging Rudyard Kipling story but I wouldn't say it's underrated as it's mentioned quite often in discussions and is generally highly praised. A cartoon version was shown on TV regularly when I was a child and I loved watching it.
Although I've read Julia Donaldson's
Stick Man, I don't recall much about it. Our own Julia Donaldson favourite when my children were little was
A Squash and a Squeeze. We lived in a tiny terraced house so the story resonated with us!
I've seen a film version of Dodie Smith's
I Capture the Castle but haven't read the book, although I intend to. I read
The Hundred and One Dalmatians,
Starlight Barking and
The Midnight Kittens many times as a child and they transported me to magical worlds.
As a teenager I had five or six of Jeffrey Archer's adult novels but I'm not familiar with any of his children's books.
Willy Visits the Square World is summarised on Amazon as follows: "Willy encounters a variety of strange creatures after he dons his space suit and journeys to the square world in search of his missing cat Yo-Yo." Sounds quirky.
Although I've read a few stories by James Thurber, I don't think 'The 13 Clocks' was one of them. Neither have I tried anything by Tolkien except for
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings.
Roverandom certainly sounds different!
I've never come across
The Elephant and the Flower by Brian Patten, though I have read some of his poems. As for Lauren Child's Clarice Bean books, I've seen them in the shops but haven't been inspired to pick them up.
Towards the end of the
Independent article is the following paragraph:
An honourable mention for Debbie Welch, who nominated The Rubadub Mystery, Enid Blyton, 1951. “There’s a number of hidden gems in EB, and this is one of them. The main character, Barney, is tricked into doing things by someone promising to find his estranged father. The emotion and characterisation are far beyond what people associate with EB.”
Hurrah! I agree wholeheartedly that
The Rubadub Mystery and indeed the whole Barney series (or at least the first four titles) ought to be better known. Sadly, they've been out of print for ages! Personally, I also think the two Six Cousins books and
The Six Bad Boys warrant more attention. Again, the characterisation is strong, the writing is mature and there is plenty of drama and emotion. They're thought-provoking family stories that shed light on the attitudes of the time.
As far as other famous authors are concerned, I wish more people knew
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
The Secret Garden is extra special but
A Little Princess is wonderful too. It's imaginative and heartwarming with some unexpected characters and events.
Eva Ibbotson's
Journey to the River Sea is frequently praised (and so it should be - I'm re-reading it at the moment and it's a gripping story which flows and entices just like the river of the title) but I feel that
The Star of Kazan by the same author is just as good and deserves more recognition. It's an involving story full of mystery, set in the Austro-Hungarian and German empires in the early 20th century.