Malcolm Saville (1901–1982)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The first edition since 1946, with full colour illustrations throughout.

'At last she reached the brow of the hill ... now the country opened out below her and she looked down into a wide and lovely valley ... Still patched with snow the little fields spread like a carpet below her and here and there a farmhouse with barns and golden ricks was clearly seen. Across the plain ran, straight as a ruler, a railway line and she saw a toy train puffing and crawling across the picture.'

Malcolm Saville's classic novel is about eleven-year old Jane's discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle's farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London. This deeply-felt novel was written while Saville was extending his range as a writer, alongside his very successful Lone Pine adventure series, and nature anthologies for children. Inspired by the experiences of Saville's own god-daughter, this marvellous novel is full of the wonder of discovery, as well the happiness of regaining health, making friends, and learning to love the natural world. The novel is also a record of rural England eighty years ago, written by one of the great twentieth century English nature writers.

The Introduction is written by Hazel Sheeky Bird of the University of Newcastle. The illustrations by Bernard Bowerman have been reproduced from the first edition.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A quiet, gentle read for your tween-years reader. Beautiful reprint edition of a very prolific author for children's post-WWII novel. It follows Jane, a young girl recuperating from a serious illness at her aunt and uncle's farm in rural England. The framing device is, I know you'll know from the off, an excuse to write an elegy for the rural life that generations of people around the world were abandoning in increasing numbers as the world adjusted to new realities.

The text is, of course, not telling you this directly. It's a very sweet, very detailed love-letter to a vanishing time as it faded away. The reason it is interesting to read now is the world is rediscovering a need, once amply fulfilled, to recognize and relate our lives to the rhythms of the natural world. We do our descendants a service by giving them books of this sort. The way that urban outsider Jane comes to understand and treasure this world and its beauties and cycles is edifying without feeling condescending.

A kid today will read this with a sense of shock, I think, that this was ever a way of life that millions followed. It is clearly written and, while there are people winking in it, they are doing so from adult to child, so it's revoltingly condescending but not unexpected. The kind of folk who lived this life at that distant time:

...would have done the w-verb without thinking a thing of it. *shudder* The good old days, they were rotten.

The Introduction by Hazel Sheeky Bird is a wondeful overview of Saville's extended career as a writer for tweens and teens. It makes the book suitable for adults nostalgic for an earlier way of life by contextualizing it in its social milieu. I guess most of the people I'd gift it to, those between 11 and 14, will skip past that essay. If you were old enough to remember the Coronation, or the Rosenberg case, this book with Introduction will very likely hit every last nostalgia bump on your noggin.

Gifted to yourself or a younger reader, one who is beginning to wonder about the natural world around them, this novel of self-discovery, and family love, and the cycle of the seasons embedding them all, will hit a high note for #Booksgiving.… (plus d'informations)

Second in the series about Lucy (12) and Humf (9), a sequel to 'The Secret of Galleybird Pit'. I thought this book more cohesive, and with less unpleasantness. Lucy's character is well-developed and her concern for both her parents feels very realistic. Indeed, her parents are believable: a hard-working mother, a fond but rather self-centred father who is easily distracted, full of ideas but little inclination to hard work.

There's some camping, and an ongoing plot involving some crooks stealing and re-selling items from unlocked farmhouses. I thought it a good story, well-told, although I suspect some of the adult interactions would go over the head of most 9- or 10-year-olds, which are the main target group.

But worth reading if you are a fan of Malcolm Saville's writing, and if you can find it as it's only available used.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/10/good-dog-dandy-by-malcolm-saville.h...… (plus d'informations)

I expect I read this in 1974 when I bought it; nearly fifty years later I've just finished it, possibly for the first time since I was a teenager. It's about 12-year-old Lucy and her younger brother Humf who have moved from the city to a small village in Sussex.

Nice family dynamics, though I don't think children would appreciate them, and Humf is a three-dimensional character, but the plot is a bit thin, and there's no 'secret' as such. Rather more unpleasant animal issues than I'm comfortable with, but this was written in 1959, and set in a farming community.

Perhaps a child of about nine or ten might like it, so long as they're not sensitive to unpleasant scenes involving animals; but I suspect this is mainly read by adults who have loved Saville's writing for many decades.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-secret-of-galleybird-pit-by-mal...… (plus d'informations)

Good characterisation in this children's book, but the adventure mostly involves bird-watching and camping, neither of which particularly interest me.

Worth reading after 'All Summer Through' and 'Christmas in Nettleford', which I finished earlier in the year, or for a child of about 8-12 who's not quite ready for the better-known 'Lone Pine' series by the same author. And I'm glad I've finally re-read these books after, probably, about fifty years.

But although I recalled the series with some fondness - and the children did rather get under my skin - I have no inclination to look for the fourth in the series.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/07/spring-comes-to-nettleford-by-malco...… (plus d'informations)