REVIEWERS IN THIS ISSUE BfK


Brian Alderson is founder of the Children’s Books History Society and a former Children’s Books Editor for The Times. Gwynneth Bailey is a freelance education and children’s book consultant. Clive Barnes, formerly Principal Children’s Librarian, Southampton City is a freelance researcher and writer. Diane Barnes, was a librarian for 20 years, mostly as a children’s specialist, working in Kent, Herts, Portsmouth and Hampshire, and Lusaka (Zambia) with the British Council. Jill Bennett is the author of Learning to Read with Picture Books and heads up a nursery unit. Jon Biddle is English Coordinator/Reading Champion at Moorlands Primary Academy in Norfolk, and co-founder of the Patron of Reading scheme. Annie Brierley has worked in libraries and the related sector all her working life and is currently Library Supervisor in North Devon. Rebecca Butler writes and lectures on children’s literature. Jane Churchill is a children’s book consultant. Stuart Dyer is an Head Teacher of a primary school in East Devon. Anne Faundez is a freelance education and children’s book consultant. Janet Fisher is a children’s literature consultant. Geoff Fox is former Co-Editor (UK) of Children’s Literature in Education, but continues to work on the board and as an occasional teller of traditional tales. Sarah Gallagher is a headteacher and director of Storyshack.org www.storyshack.org Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator. Ferelith Hordon is a former children’s librarian and editor of Books for Keeps Carey Fluker Hunt is a writer and children’s book consultant. Matthew Martin is a primary school teacher. Sue McGonigle is a Lecturer in Primary Education and Co-Creator of www.lovemybooks.co.uk Margaret Pemberton is a school library consultant and blogs at margaretpemberton.edublogs.org. Neil Philip is an author, poet, mythographer and folklorist. Val Randall is Head of English and Literacy Co-ordinator at a Pupil Referral Unit. Andrea Reece is Managing Editor of Books for Keeps. Sue Roe is a children’s librarian. Elizabeth Schlenther is the compiler of www.healthybooks.org.uk Nicholas Tucker is honorary senior lecturer in Cultural and Community Studies at Sussex University.


The 100 Best Children’s Books


HHHHH


Brian Alderson, Galileo Publishers, 256pp, 978-1-903385-98-2, £14.99 hbk


When I reviewed the Grolier Club’s One Hundred Books Famous in Children’s Literature for the Newsletter of the Children’s


Books I remarked that inclusions or these exclusions


History Society, quibbling over was


pointless, as ‘every member of this Society could compile his or her own list of a hundred books, and each of


and equally valid.’ Brian Alderson, the founder of the CBHS and also a contributor


to the Grolier lists would be different volume,


has taken me at my word, and after a lifetime of devotion to the study of children’s literature has produced his own ‘100 Best’ selection. Alderson


has


Gloucester wordless Grolier


restricted Quentin himself


to works of fiction (though allowing enough


selection and picture


Clown), whereas admitted


books.


leeway for The Tailor of and


poetry Nevertheless


there is a significant overlap in the two choices – 26 titles, by my count. Both books close with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone - not perhaps one of the “best” in terms of originality or language, but certainly a hugely important milestone in the history of children’s reading. The feeling that each


chosen


book forms such a milestone has been a strong factor in determining Alderson’s intriguing selection, so that ‘the bestness of my authors of choice may not always lie in their absolute literary accomplishment but in their importance as waymarks in the development of a literature.’ So there are books here whose importance is primarily a matter of historical value rather than everlasting freshness. Alderson starts with The Pilgrim’s Progress in 1678, and 34 of his 100 were published before the twentieth century. This may disappoint some who are looking for recommendations for today’s children, but it means his commentary on every book right up to Harry Potter is rooted in a sound understanding of the history of the children’s story as a distinct genre, or ‘multiplicity of genres.’ Alderson writes that, ‘What I have


been looking for in the authors that I have chosen is a distinctiveness in their writing which brings it close to that of the told story.’ So alongside such obvious choices


as Black Beauty, Bevis: The Story of a Boy, The Wind in the Willows, The Hobbit, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Borrowers, Brian Alderson finds room for a number of


relatively unsung Here we find Christopher Pearse


Blake’s the


reviews Books about Children’s Books


Cranch’s fantasy The Last of the Huggermuggers, Hesba Stretton’s story of a street waif Jessica’s First Prayer, J. Meade Falkner’s adventure story Moonfleet, K. M. Briggs’s folklore-drenched Hobberdy


Dick,


and Janni Howker’s historical novel of the borders Martin Farrell. There


are some surprises, too.


Who would have imagined finding W. E. Johns’ Biggles stories The Camels Are Coming in a list of the 100 best children’s


books? Yet Alderson


writes very interestingly about this and indeed all the books. He is a very genial companion as he walks us through his selection, becoming especially animated when he arrives at a particular


favourite, such as


Masefield’s The Midnight Folk or de la Mare’s The Three Mulla-Mulgars. One might cavil at some of the


choices from within an oeuvre. I would have chosen The Box of Delights rather


than The Midnight Folk


because of its breathtaking narrative momentum, its delight in language, and its influence on authors such as Alan Garner and Susan Cooper via the 1943 radio adaptation by John Keir Cross. And while there are two books by Philippa Pearce—her own The Battle of Bubble and Squeak, and


her brilliantly deft editing/


rewriting of Brian Fairfax-Lucy’s The Children of the House – it seems odd to prefer these to her three bona fide masterpieces, Minnow on the Say, A Dog So Small, and Tom’s Midnight Garden. But this is Brian Alderson’s choice,


not mine. His knowledge in this area is both wide and deep, and he has made that choice with taste and discretion. Some of what he writes will be familiar to


readers of Books for Keeps,


because he draws on the articles he has written for this journal over the years on classic children’s books. The one really controversial choice


is the decision to include A Swarm in May by William Mayne. No one can deny this is a really fine book. But is it blighted forever by Mayne’s conviction in 2004 for abused


young girls some


‘having thirty


years previously’? The problem of William Mayne is one that will haunt children’s literature scholarship for many decades to come. How can it be that the uniquely-voiced author of A Swarm in May, and so many other unparalleled books – No More School, A Year and a Day, Ravensgill, Earthfasts, The Jersey Shore – was also a child abuser? In his books he treats his child protagonists with such empathy and understanding. But those books, brilliant as they are, ‘are all out of print.’ Can we value the work despite the man? It’s a conundrum with no easy answer. Oh — and really no room for Harriet


treasures. the Spy? Neil Philip


Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind Children’s Books


HHHHH


Clare Pollard, Fig Tree, 304pp, 978-0241354780, £14.99 hbk


Among the many things to recommend Fierce Bad Rabbits among the countless picture-book studies already existing is that only Clare Pollard could have written it. Pollard is a poet, a mother to small children and herself a former small child, and each of these informs what interests her and how she reads. The book coheres as a survey, but is also inevitably and delightfully partial – not so much a history of children’s picture


books (though


this is there, too), as a thoughtful, personal reading of them. The starting-point is one


that


BfK readers will take for granted: that children’s picture books merit attention, because they and their effects can be complex and profound – they can be diversions but they need not be only that. I would not put money on this assumption being shared by the general public, however, even the general reading public, and Pollard’s often detailed analysis helps make a convincing case. The analysis of each book Pollard


examines is fine-scalpelled, but it’s the sort of surgical care that keeps its subjects’ animating spirit intact, not killing it. Many of her favourite books are my favourite books, and her attention made me want to return to them to look again (detailed criticism does not always have this effect); a few are books I did not know, and have since ordered. (My new copy of Clever Bill – how lovely to be reminded of that! – and a biography of Margaret Wise Brown should be arriving next week. Be warned: Fierce Bad Rabbits will make you shop.) Pollard balances


the to personal


(her childhood memories – her introduction


feminism through


Best Friends for Frances – or her experiences reading with her own


Books for Keeps No.239 November 2019 19


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