Children’s Book Week: When We Were Cubs by the Bookfoxes

It will be no surprise to anyone that we bookfoxes have all been book lovers from our very earliest days. For some of us, the first books that touched our hearts were ones featuring children with magical powers or amazing lives, children like us and yet ones who were very different; for others, stories about animals were the ones that first drew us into the wonderful world of books; and for yet others, we wanted to be scared half to death by stories of monsters and ogres. But for all of us, when we talked about these first loves, memories came flooding back of glorious hours spent escaping to other worlds.

Rosy on The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones

There are plenty of Diana Wynne Jones classics. For me, it’s a close-run thing, with both Charmed Life and The Time of the Ghost both hot favourites. But if I think about which of her books I loved most as a child: The Ogre Downstairs wins every time.

The Ogre Downstairs is about a step-family, who all hate each other. The main character is Caspar – a typical almost-teenager who likes listening to records and has the messiest bedroom outside my own. With his younger brother Johnny and his sister Gwynny, he is not pleased when his mother marries The Ogre (a shouting irritable man with no tolerance for loud music and messy bedrooms) and he is forced to give up his bedroom to two stuffy and bullying sons, Douglas and Malcolm,

In an attempt to “butter up” Johnny (the most difficult of his step children) The Ogre gives him a chemistry set. To piss the ogre off, Johnny sets to mixing up the most disgusting smells he can.

An accident with Johnny’s concoction leads to the discovery that this is no ordinary chemistry set but is something of the magical (and slightly ominous – we ARE talking Diana Wynne Jones here) variety.

The magic chemistry set is a wonderful excuse to indulge in all our childhood fantasies: being able to fly, switching bodies with another person, making inanimate objects coming to life…

Less dark and twisted than some of Diana Wynne Jones’ books, what I loved as a child was the humour and a real sense of the irritations and loyalties of being a sibling. All the characters are distinct and different. Even Gwynny, who could so easily disappoint with her usual interest in dolls and her occasional mothering of her older brothers – is her own agent, often leading the plot forward single-handedly, including a hilarious sequence where she decides to take matters into her own hands and do away with the Ogre once and for all.

As a child, I had never come across a book before that made you see things from different points of view. A section where Caspar and Malcolm switch bodies was relevatory to me (aged 9). Similarly, the way the book makes you see the Ogre and Douglas (teenage son) both antagonistically and sympathetically by turn, was amazing to me at an age where you rarely think of anyone’s point of view but your own.

The Ogre Downstairs has everything: a touch of Harry Potter (flying), a dollop of Freaky Friday (switching places), a soupcon of The Borrowers (animated dolls), all seasoned with a nice sprinkling of Jacqueline Wilson (the trials and tribulations of real life.) It has humour, realistic dialogue, messy bedrooms, toffee bars and a spot of attempted murder (as I said, this IS Diana Wynne Jones). I loved it then and I love it now.

Trilby on Edward Gorey

It won’t come as any surprise that C.S. Lewis and Enid Blyton are among my abiding childhood-nostalgia reads – I’d happily rate them alongside The Secret Garden, Just William and Kipling’s Just-So Stories. Nor was I permanently ensconced in Victoriana and the interwar years (although I did spend a lot of time in both places; I still do). I enjoyed Joan Aiken and Kit Pearson, too. But there is one author/illustrator who bridged a link between the old and the new – and although he is perhaps an unconventional choice for this series, I couldn’t not mention Edward Gorey.

Yes, he of The Hapless Child and The Gashlycrumb Tinies fame. His work is always gothic, frequently gruesome, and sometimes downright salacious. Not something any right-minded person would show a child. Mercifully, my naughty godparents were the exception.

I had admired their collection of Gorey’s short illustrated books – most featured uncoloured pen and ink drawings – from the age of ten or so. Kohl-eyed vamps seduced scheming magnates; innocent waifs fell victim to creepy curates; lumpish uninvited guests descended on unsuspecting families. People disappeared into the wallpaper. Gorey introduced me to the decadence and depravity of the belle époque – and I have never looked back.

Some (though few) of Gorey’s tales can be read – just – as pure childish entertainment. These include The Shrinking of Treehorn, The Wuggly Ump and The Doubtful Guest. Others – such as The Loathsome Couple and The Curious Sofa – can not. I can’t remember what actually happens in The Glorious Nosebleed or The Epileptic Bicycle, and I’m pretty sure that nothing at all happens in The West Wing. What I do know is that Gorey introduced me to a rich phantasmagoria which lies somewhere between childhood and adulthood, and to this day he never fails to elicit a wicked giggle.

Mary on Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

I bought this book recently for my daughter when I remembered how much I loved it as a child (although the 70^th anniversary edition emblazoned on the front made me feel distinctly old). As soon as I’d finished it, I remember running to talk to my mother about it and telling her about this wonderful book called ‘Ball- Ette Shoes’. My cheeks burned with mortification when she laughed at my mistake but this diminished the excitement of my wonderful discovery for only a very short while. It was possibly one of the first books to introduce me to the joy of imagining myself someone else. Until then, I mostly read fairy stories, myths and various magical tales which, wonderful though they were, didn’t feel as real. I read Ballet Shoes again recently with a little trepidation, afraid of having grown-up.

It is the story of Pauline, Petrova and Posy, three orphans who are adopted by Gum (Great Uncle Matthew) an absent adverturer, cared for by a householdful of various people and who go to the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. The three girls are very different; Pauline is the beautiful, talented actress, Petrova, the car-mad tomboy and Posy, the driven ballet dancer. I must have changed my mind twenty times about which one I wanted to be (practical matters such as the fact that I couldn’t pronouce ‘ballet’ never mind do it or that I wasn’t beautiful were no obstacles) and I remembered the luxury of that choice on my second reading.

In some ways, the advanced age of both the book and myself had changed my perspective. The preoccupation of the children with earning money, their obsession with the cost of everything, the adults smoking in their presence all felt strange or old-fashioned now but didn’t then. I could complain that, although the book is an engaging account of their lives, it doesn’t have a build-up to any one big event or I could say that the ending fizzles away a little bit but I won’t – it’s still a great story.

Moira on The Amazing Mr Whisper and The Return of Mr Whisper by Belinda G Macrow

I have a seriously ill-regulated memory. Unlike most people, my recall of my childhood is patchy, to put it mildly. I plainly HAD one, because – here I am and I have the photographs to prove it; but most of my life before the age of about 11 or 12 seems to have happened in a thick fog. I have patches of clarity, but they’re few and far between.

Having said that, one particular book – or rather a pair of books – has lodged in my mind all these years. I remember taking them out of the local lending library over and over again, reading them to destruction, loving them above all others and wishing I owned them.

They were Belinda G Macrow’s The Amazing Mr Whisper and The Return of Mr Whisper.

They were about a mysterious stranger – the eponymous Mr Whisper – who, as I think I remember, became the tutor of a lonely, alienated young girl and opened up a magical world for her. He turned out, I believe, to be something rather high up in the Fairy World.

I was totally enchanted by them and with the benefit of hindsight – and the passage of nearly half a century – I can now see that I identified with the girl, and longed for my own Mr Whisper to take me away from the rather hideous housing estate I was then living on.

When I discovered the internet, many, many years later, one of the very first things I did was look for the books – only to find that they had become objects of desire and far beyond my financial reach.

Part of me would like to read them again to see if they really are as magical as I remember them.

Another part of me is rather afraid to, in case they aren’t…

Lisa on Boarding School Books

My favourite book as a child? I had a favourite genre of books: school books. The schools portrayed within the pages of these gloriously escapist novels were nothing like the schools I attended. They talked of activities like lacrosse, Latin revision and mandatory church service on a Sunday. The first series of these books that I fell for was the Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton. Malory Towers was a rather jolly hockey-sticks Cornish boarding school attended by a variety of upper class, Famous Five-ish pupils. The books began with Darrell Rivers in her first term and ended with her final year at the school. I was addicted to these books and yet I am left only with a hazy impression of exciting escapades and one very naughty pupil called Alicia Johns.

The Chalet School novels by Elinor Brent-Dyer were similar in concept, but the school was based in Austria, at least it was until the rise of Nazism, when it sensibly relocated to Guernsey, and from there it apparently moved on to Hereford, Wales and Switzerland. Out of all of the fictional schools I read about, I most wanted to attend The Chalet School, to enjoy its panoramic vistas, to swim in bracing alpine lakes, to learn to ski, to have fabulous outdoor art lessons, and to sample its constant supply of “Kaffee und Kuchen”.

Sweet Valley High, created by Francine Pascal was a modern American version of the genre classics. This hugely popular series followed the pursuits of the twins, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. These two girls were quite mischievous, and managed to attract a fair bit of attention from the opposite sex. I seem to remember they were thin and fair, with long golden hair that felt like silk – I remember being struck by this as I was tall, broad, dark and had hair that felt like Brillo-pad. Needless to say, I grew out of the Sweet Valley High phase quite quickly, but for a time I was seduced by the American high school dream, which seemed so much glitzier than anything Britain had to offer.

Jackie on Marguerite Henry

When I was about 8 years old, I found a book in the school library about a beautiful stallion and the little orphan boy who took care of him. The story began in Arabia and had the magical title of King of the Wind. That was my introduction to Marguerite Henry’s horse books. It was also my introduction to Islam, as the novel began in the month of Ramadan. A much better way to learn of that religion than today’s children hearing terrorist propaganda. Through her books, I learned about history, from Colonial America, Georgian England, the Gold Rush and the rescue of the Lippizzaner Stallions in WW2. Not only was there lots of horses in barns, fields and race tracks, but there were other cultures and lifestyles, all of them so drastically different from my dysfunctional family. When I picked up one of Ms. Henry’s books, my stress and sickliness would be swept away to the desert sands or Oklahoma prairies. Instead of arguments, I’d be riding Brighty, the donkey, through the Grand Canyon.
It wasn’t only the writing that made the books so enjoyable, it was also the delightful artwork by Wesley Dennis. His wash and charcoal illustrations were sprinkled liberally throughout each book, sometimes just a tiny drawing of a foal frolicking such would end a chapter. The horses always had flowing tails and tossed manes and the shiny coats, Mr. Dennis really knew his subjects. I must admit to being upset when I see modern reprints of the books with someone else’s artwork, it seems sacrilegious.
I never knew anything about Marguerite Henry apart from her books and have never looked into it, even as an adult. It seemed enough to love her work. I do recall hearing of her death on CNN in the 1990’s and crying. A few years ago, I found her Album of Horses at an antique show and was happily surprised to see it autographed as well. It stands on a shelf in my bedroom, among my most treasured books.

So which are the ones you remember and loved from your own childhood? Full steam ahead for nostalgic reminisences in the comments below.

Thanks to tuka108 at Flickr for the photo of the fox-cub .