The Places You Will Go

Friends to the Rescue

By DAPHNE LEE

from Tots to Teens, StarMag

I RE-READ two of my Noel Streatfeild novels last week - my absolute favourite, Curtain Up. And one that I don't know very well - The Bell Family. Both are illustrated, just as most children's books published before the 1970s were. It had not registered before but the pictures in The Bell Family are by Shirley Hughes. Hughes also illustrated another Streatfeild book, The Painted Garden, and many other books, including her own. Her style is very recognisable, especially her depiction of people. You can always tell a Hughes (human) character by her/his round cheeks, tip-tilted nose, determined chin and frank gaze.

Hughes is 71 and still writing and illustrating. In fact, she has a new picture book out - Jonadab and Rita (The Bodley Head, 32 pages, ISBN: 978-0370329284). The main characters in this book are toys - a donkey, Jonadab, and his best friend, Rita, a mouse. They are just two toys amongst many owned by a little girl called Minnie. Of course it's hard to pay equal attention to all one's toys - if you have dozens. Jonadab and Rita are left at the bottom of the toy chest quite a bit and this causes Jonadab to decide to strike out on his own. He can actually fly - a handy gift if you want to see the world, which Jonadab does.

Mini Review: The House in Cornwall

It's the return of the mini review! The last time I wrote one was in May, 2007! A blog reader Terri Green has inspired me to start again. She asked, in an email, if I had written any mini reviews of my favourite Noel Streatfeild books, as I'd promised in one of my posts. I had to admit I hadn't - oh, the shame! Well, I'm going to, Terri, and here's the first:

The House in Cornwall
By Noel Streatfeild
Publisher: Dragon, 139 pages
ISBN: 583300979

Three children (siblings Edward, Sorrell and Wish) are sent to Cornwall to spend six weeks of the summer with their uncle Murdock as the cousin they usually stay with during the holidays is ill (their parents are abroad).

They are quite anxious at the thought of staying with Murdock as they have never met him. Murdock used to live in Livia (a fictitious country) where he assisted in toppling the monarchy. Murdock then worked as chief of staff of the dictator Manoff. A counter-revolution resulted in his return to his mansion in the West country.

At Murdock's mansion, the three children find that they are treated like prisoners. They are watched and guarded at all times and have no contact with the outside world - forbidden access to newspapers and the radio.

Their suspicions that something fishy is going on are confirmed when they hear a child crying in the gardener's house!

This is quite unlike most of the other Streatfeild books I own, which are set in the world of dance and/or theatre. It's more like an Enic Blyton mystery. In fact, it is very like Blyton's The Secret of Spiggy Holes, which is also set in Cornwall and features kidnapped royalty.

However, although the characters in Cornwall don't dance, act or sing, they are still recognisably Streatfeild creations, and this means they are much more developed than Blytons ever are. For example, although Sorrell is a young lady who is quite house-proud and motherly - like Anne in the Famous Five series - her character, unlike Anne, is an active one, and there is some attempt to explore her personality and develop it in tandem with the plot.

I do like corny mysteries with flashing lights and strange sounds in the night, mysterious strangers and pesky kids who are always able to outwit the grownups. Another book I am reminded of whenever I re-read Cornwall is Blyton's The Circus of Adventure, which features yet another Ruritanian royal. These stories require a huge suspension of disbelief, but this comes quite naturally, even automatically, to me when I enter such worlds as are featured in them.

I Feel a Re-read Coming Up

I received an email this morning from Sarah Ebner, who writes The Times (London)'s Education blog, pointing me to her latest post, which lists her favourite boarding school books/series.

I'm taking the night train to Singapore tonight and will be reading End of Term by Antonia Forest in my bunk - it's my all-time favourite boading school book.

Of course I love ALL Forest's books, but this is my favourite of the four set in boarding school (Kingscote School). In this one, the Marlow sisters have just returned to school after the summer holidays, during which there were lots of developments including the family moving from London to stay in an inherited farm in the country; Nicola making friends with Patrick Merrick (the boy-next-door); and Rowan deciding to chuck school and run the farm, Trennels (all this is in Falconer's Lure, a non-school book about the Marlow family).

As it's the Christmas term at Kingscote, everyone is involved in some way or other with the Christmas play, which, unlike past terms, will be held at the cathedral. Naturally, there's a part Laurie would sell her soul to have. Nicola is, in the meantime, asked to sing a solo, while Tim is denied the chance to boss everyone around since it's a big production not a student effort unlike their first term's The Prince and the Pauper, which she adapted, produced and directed.

In this book Tim is more Laurie's friend than Nicola's. Laurie is being her self-absorbed, whiny self which gets on Nick's nerves. She leaves Tim to humour Laurie and becomes friendly with Miranda West, a brilliant and articulate classmate whose sense of humour and attitude to life matches Nicola's much better than anyone else's.

I really enjoy the descriptions of rehearsals for the play and the play itself - the interaction between students, and students and staff; the chaotic atmosphere at the cathedral during rehearsals; the harebrained schemes; the pettiness; the kindness of friends; and the casual, thoughtless cruelty that comes with apathy.

There are also a couple of conversations about religion (Christianity) that are hilarious thanks to Laurie's utter ignorance and the adults' incredulous and outraged responses. I love those scenes and sometimes just re-read those when I want a laugh.

I also like the chapter that describes Nicola and Patrick's ride, at half-term, across the downs to Wade Abbas (the cathedral city where the play will be performed). The ride back at night is very thrilling, what with Patrick reciting bits from the Lykewake Dirge (spooky!) and Browning's How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix - a very good poem to gallop to!

Can't wait to revisit End of Term on my train ride tonight!

Pauline Baynes 1922-2008

Pauline Baynes, the illustrator of C. S. Lewis's Narnia books, died on 1st August.

She was 86.

For many she will live on because of the iconic images she created for Lewis's series, in particular (for me at least) that evocative picture of Luch and Susan frolicking with Aslan (on the cover of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and the one (in the same book) of Lucy walking through the snow with Tumnus the Faun (left).

In fact, Baynes illustrated books many other books by other authors, including J. R. R. Tolkien, Rumer Godden and Helen Piers. I was surprised to discover that she was also responsible for the cover for the first paperback edition of Richard Adams's Watership Down. That's one cover I remember distinctly from my childhood - I didn't know she was the illustrator until I read about her her death on Brian Sibley's blog.

Sibley also wrote her obituary in The Independent.

Picture Book of the Month: Cowboy & Octopus

July 2008

Cowboy & Octopus
By Jon Scieszka
Illustrated by Lane Smith
Publisher: Viking, 32 pages
Cowboy and octopus are an unlikely twosome. They are as different as a ... well, a cowboy and octopus can be, but it's these differences that go to show what good friends they are. Cowboy and octopus put up with one another's strange tastes (beans with everything!), incompetence (in the hands of some, hammers can kill!), cross-dressing and bad jokes. Mst telling of all, they accept the truth from each other - because that's what good friends do - tell you the truth even if it's not what you want to hear.

Boarding School Days

I spent most of my time at 14 writing a boarding school novel. I wrote another one when I was 32. It was about Su Shan St Sebastien, a half-Malaysian 14-year-old, whose father enrols her in a prestigious boarding school in the English countryside. Su Shan's mother has died of cancer and her father (who divorced her mother when Su Shan was a baby) is a stranger to the girl.

At school, Su Shan meets her four half-sisters - two older and two younger than she, and each set of two by a different woman - their dad, it seems, is quite a serial monogamist. Su Shan adapts easily to life at boarding school thanks to her friendly, helpful, supportive sisters and her new best friends - Magda, who happens to be a famous model when she's not at school; and Janferie, whose mother is a fashion designer!

Su Shan even meets and falls in love with a rock star. And is loved in return! Yes, it's pure fantasy, and that's really the whole point of boarding school stories, rather like romance novels and thrillers.

I would most dearly like to write a sequel. Unfortunately, I am already juggling half-a-dozen projects so Su Shan St Sebastien's adventures at Marchmere School for Girls and as the girlfriend of a famous rock star will have to wait.

The World in a Book

I never enjoyed geography lessons when I was in school. All those names! All those terms! They didn't seem to have anything to do with my life. If only I had had J. Patrick Lewis's A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme to bewitch and encourage me!

Axel Scheffler: The Interview

My interview with the illustrator of The Gruffalo and other books by Julia Donaldson could not be reproduced in full in StarMag today because of the lack of space (books don't get many pages and I think that's not just in Malaysia).

Anyway, it's just as well that this blog exists.

Picture Book of the Month: John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat

June 2008

John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat
By Jenny Wagner
Illustrated by Ron Brooks
Publisher: Puffin Books, 32 pages

John Brown is an old English sheep dog. He belongs to Rose, an old widow, and is a deeply devoted companion. Says Rose, "We are all right, John Brown. Just the two of us. You and me." But one night, Rose notices a cat in the garden. A midnight cat. She is fascinated by the cat. John Brown doesn't approve. He tells the cat to leave. But Rose wants the cat. She longs for it. She leaves it milk in a bowl, which John Brown tips over. Finally, Rose takes to her bed and declares that she might stay there forever. John Brown is sad and decides that, because he loves Rose so much, he will put up with the midnight cat. This is a strange picture book - quite gloomy and sombre. The midnight cat is slightly sinister - could it be a symbol of death? When John Brown finally allows the cat into the cottage, is he really accepting Rose's death? Perhaps being a true friend includes being able to let go.

Say "No!" to Sham-Pooh! We Want the Real Pooh!

By DAPHNE LEE

Tots to Teens

MOST children now, if you say Winnie-the-Pooh to them, will think of that saffron-yellow tub of lard in a two-sizes-two-small red T-shirt, star of Disney's several series, all of which are based on A. A. Milne's books about the "bear of very little brain".

The latest Disney series is called My Friends Tigger and Pooh, and as usual, there is an annoyingly catchy theme song and characters who Milne would not recognise from his books.

Watching any of Disney's Pooh series makes me want to wring the bear's neck and also bash his friends, especially Tigger and Rabbit, to a pulp. Pooh, Piglet and Tigger are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer (understandable since they are toys who have stuffing for brains), but their stupidity reaches new, unchartered depths in the telly series. And the usually shrewd Rabbit (my favourite character in the original books) appears to be suffering from some form of dementia - worse still, Disney portrays him as a rather effeminate and neurotic elderly male.

But back to Edward Bear (that's Pooh's real name, although we also learn that he once lived in the forest under the name of Sanders) - the books he appears in are Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). The former introduces us to the bear and his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Kanga and Roo, and Rabbit and Owl (the only two of the gang who are real animals and so, in theory, more brainy than the rest). Pooh has a growly voice and he does Stoutness Exercises. It's established that he is rather greedy, a bit of a coward, quite brainless, but perfectly amiable.