Friday phrases: all covered with white blossoms

Most of my Friday phrases are relatively cheery; silly, even. A little light relief is no bad thing, at the end of a long week.

Now and again, other phrases carve their way into my brain. They are not as light in impact, though they are crafted in a light-handed way.

The Selfish Giant is one of those books, and it contains one of those phrases – more, in fact. It is utterly beautiful. I suspect it is another of the ones that appeared through the children’s book club my parents signed up for.

We talk glibly of journeys in stories. But the Selfish Giant’s journey from aggressor to defender of children is a significant one.

Almost like an Old Testament hero, he spends much of his life waiting: hoping for the return of the little boy he met only once. When they do meet again…let’s just say that I find it hard to complete the story if reading it out loud.

When looking for a link for this piece, I was particularly pleased that the version I knew appeared: this is the version illustrated by Michael Foreman.

Foreman is famous for many beautiful illustrated stories now, but this may have been an early introduction to his work for me, without me realising it.

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The Selfish Giant (final section)

     “…’Who art thou?’ said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, ‘You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.’

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.”

[I only chose the last section, but you can read the whole story through the link above.]

Lit Kid: family favourites

School fair, second-hand book shops. We know where to get the hard stuff.

And just occasionally we strike really lucky: not just kids’ books, not just good kids’ books – but the ones we have loved, had to give back to the library, and then finally got our hands on our own copy.

These are the kind of books that you can read together, and reread, and read yet again.
And you are still laughing as you do. Both of you. That is the kind of book worth hunting for – and claiming when you encounter it again.

So by these exacting standards, we have struck particularly lucky recently. And the set of books is so good that it merits a further Lit Kid this week.

Here’s what we found:

The Troll – Julia Donaldson, David Roberts. Julia Donaldson is well known (Gruffalo et al), David Roberts does his own author illustrator stuff (and I’ve waxed lyrical about some of this too). Together: tremendous.

The Troll is a mash-up – running two different stories or genres together – and a great example as such. In this case we get a reworked troll, who really doesn’t terrify the billy goats he encounters, and a set of hapless pirates, hunting for treasure.

I will say little more, because I really want you to read it for yourself and admire how cleverly the two stories are woven together. But I will gave you an appetiser: better than the pirates’ own:

‘That night it was Peg Polkadot’s turn to do the cooking. She cooked fishcakes.

“They’re sticky,” said Ben Buckle.

“They’re sandy,” said Percy Patch.

Hank Chief said nothing. He was too busy being sick over the side of the ship.’

Hiccup the Viking Who Was Seasick – Cressida Cowell

I have written, happily, about Cressida Cowell’s hero Hiccup, and I am sure I shall do so again.

But it took a while to remember that, long before the boys discovered the film, and the series of chapter books, Junior Reader and I had borrowed this story from the library.
It marks the very beginnings of the hero Hiccup will become.

Cowell is notable for her loose and funny illustrations as well as her prose. In picture book format, this works just fine, as the pictures get even more attention (and colour too).

I particularly liked the description of the venerable Old Wrinkly, Hiccup’s grandfather: ‘…his breath was like being kissed by mackerel’.

There are more books which we are pleased about finding, but I shall cut the list short, and tell you one more:

Eco-Wolf and the Three Pigs – Laurence Anholt, Arthur Robins.

Laurence Anholt has produced books together with his wife Catherine – and we own a couple of these.

But I have to say that my affection is entirely swayed by this title, one in a series of ‘seriously silly stories’, all retelling classic fairy tales in a very light and entertaining way.

We have acquired a few of these now, but Eco-Wolf was the first. Recast as the original Valley dweller, he is a hippy going up against the bad pigs who have lots of nefarious (and environmentally UNfriendly) building schemes.

I will steel myself not to add his immortal line, which comes near the end of the story, but treat you to a little of the dialogue vibe.

(This scene follows the pigs’ first building project, which included felling some old oaks, and Eco-Wolf has a meeting with the other local animals.)

‘ “Hey, wild warrior brother-sisters,” said Eco-Wolf. “I don’t dig these big pigs. Those trees were kind of like my sister-brothers too. It makes me huff and puff, man.” ‘

The point, as I’m sure you’ll realise, is not just reading the story, and enjoying the pictures, to your own junior reader. Like, you have to do the accents too, man.

I can’t promise your local second-hand book opportunities will turn up these gems. But at least check them out at the library, and do your reading times a favour.

Lit Kid: trying to keep up

Another birthday, another set of reads to enter the house.

Some were chosen (yes, guilty as charged) and intimated to family; others were chosen by Junior Reader (who initially believed that the book token had been sent by Bramble the dog).

All good so far. When the book: other present ratio reaches something like 50:50, this feels quite a momentous point.

So is trying to keep up with the solo reading going on.

Dan and I are both in the same position just now. We introduced Junior Reader to a book (or more) each in a particular series; birthday books added more to both series.

And now Junior Reader has shot ahead and read both books. (In fact, almost – Dan caught the book for ‘his’ series before it was completed. I went off to help at an event at school, and came back to find the book in ‘my’ series already finished.)

Should you, gentle reader, need to know what the spoils were:

My series: Mr Gum and the Goblins (Andy Stanton)

Dan’s series: Who Could That Be at This Hour? (Lemony Snicket)

There are many things we have to let go of, as parents. The points where a child can feed themselves independently; can put their own shoes and coat on.

The point when they can be off on their own with friends, and not be worried about where you are. The point where they can stay over at someone else’s house without you. And so on.

To which we now add: reading books without parental involvement.

I remind myself that Junior Reader has been doing this for a few months now, since the jump to light speed (I mean, the jump to chapter books). And when these are re-reading what either parent has already read, that’s OK.

So too is reading new books which neither parent feels as much of a need to read for themselves, that too is OK. (I love children’s literature, lots of it, but not everything interests me in the same way. Which is fine, because I am no longer 7.)

But zooming through the official parental reads…hmm. Luckily Junior Reader is still very happy to be read to – we may just have to come to an agreement on what is reserved for joint consumption.

Thinking about this post today, I remembered some lines at the end of one of the Just So Stories, describing a separation still further between parent and child.

This far, thankfully, not yet.

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How the Alphabet Was Made (Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling)

“And far- oh, very far behind,

So far she cannot call to him,

Comes Tegumai alone to find

The daughter that was all to him.”

(You can find the full story at the link above, and the other Just So stories too, O Best Beloved.)

Friday phrases: don’t take your wife to arctic tundra

Back in the dim and distant past of my own primary school days, there was a certain amount of learning poems by heart.

Not as much as in my parents’ generation, or before that, I’m sure, but certainly some.

A certain category of poetry learning found in Scottish primary schools, learning Scots poems in order to recite them in school assembly on Burns Night. I might just bring you some another time.

I do still remember the bulk of the poems I learned there. But I also remember my well-thumbed copy of the Lion Book of Humorous Verse, which I thus came to memorise (at least in part) through frequent rereading.

So it is that I present you one of my favourites from that time. I particularly love the rhyme in the last line.

I can’t get you a link to the poem itself, this time, but you can find out more about the fascinating author, Hilaire Belloc, who wrote many a good satirical poem that children in particular enjoy.

Bon appetit!

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The Walrus

“The walrus lives on icy floes

And unsuspecting Eskimos

Don’t take your wife to arctic tundra

A walrus may bob up from undra.”

Hilaire Belloc

Plotting, plotting

I feel like I should be stirring a cauldron at this point. Or meeting with others in some dark building with one naked bulb overhead.

Two different forces are at work just now. One is following the words, a bit like the children following the Pied Piper. (I’m hoping for one of the friendly versions of the story where the children get to come back afterwards.)

You don’t know where you are going, but the tune is irresistible, and so you follow it, even through gaps in rocks, and away from what you know.

The other force is structure. That sounds like a contradiction when I write it – one thing moving, the other stable. But structure in story can still shift – in fact, it often does, in the way of good detective stories.

You are given a structure that makes sense of what you know so far. Then you drop a nail into the machine of the story, and suddenly it starts moving things in a different way.

Some of this shift is coming from writing a few chapters and being unsure where to go next. You can follow the trail, but you may doubt the way ahead. So sometimes you look back at where you’ve come from, hoping for some patterns, some idea of where you go next.

I am finding myself thinking about structure in stories quite a bit just now. It might be in story arcs in an ongoing TV series. It might be spotting narrative patterns in books, switching back and forth between now, recent past, distant past, and so on.

I am reminded that you need both. J K Rowling famously had the character of Harry Potter wander into her head – but she also spent much time working out the universe in which he operated, what was possible, what wasn’t.

We read and write and watch stories partly because we are hoping for structure. We want things to make sense, one way or another, even if they follow a crazy path to get there.

I visited Coventry Cathedral one time. When you walk in the door, towards the altar, the windows fan back behind you. There is light, but you don’t see out of them.

But when you turn and look back the way you come, you see the windows clearly. The angle of them means that now you can see what is on them. You can read the story.

The explanation for the way the building was built has often come back to me. Sometimes the story only makes sense after the event.

Right now, I have two separate stories building. I have followed my nose for both of them so far. Now I am finding myself looking back at what I have written, trying to sense the patterns.

Where are the gaps? Where are the bits that ring true most? Is my storyline consistent? How old is this character when they do a certain thing?

Once you pass through the chink in the rock, following your story, you come across foothills. There are many of them. You are unsure how many, which way you’ve come, which way you are going.

Little by little, you map them. You put signal flares on top of some, to light your way. You stand at the top and light the torch, and see a new valley that you haven’t yet explored.

And so you move into the valley, hoping to pick up the sound of the piper’s tune once more.