A Certain Slant of Light

This Dark Is Rising reread inspired me to check out Susan Cooper’s other novels, which is how I discovered (a) there is a second Susan Cooper, and only some libraries distinguish the two in their catalogs, and (b) the right Susan Cooper has a thriving side gig in picture books.

I started out with The Word Pirates, illustrated by Steven Kellogg (who I knew previously through his folktale retellings of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed; he’s got a very distinctive style). The Word Pirates sail the world, sending their Bumblebirds to steal words fresh off the page so the pirates can eat them! (The crew likes short, crunchy words, with milk.) But one day they learn of “a Word Wizard, a zany New Zealander,” and go off to steal words from her stories, only to discover that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.

The Word Wizard wears a rainbow wig when she reads her stories to delighted children. “Is it,” I asked, “Can it be…”

The dedication made it clear that indeed it is! “Dear Margaret Mahy, We made this book for you because you were certainly A WRITER WIZARD. And because we miss you. Love from Susan and Steven.”

Isn’t that lovely? The book was published a few years after Mahy died, and it’s nice to see such a charming story to honor her legacy.

Although I’d heard whispers about Margaret Mahy for years, I hadn’t read any of her novels till littlerhymes and I decided to read The Haunting. I’m SO glad that we did because otherwise Mahy might have passed me by entirely, and that would have been a tragedy.

The Haunting is a children’s fantasy in the classic twentieth century mold, a svelte, atmospheric little book. One day when Barney is walking home from school, a ghost appears to him: a small child dressed in blue velvet, who cries, “Barnaby’s dead! I’m going to be very lonely.”

As Barney’s full name is Barnaby, he races home in terror, and faints on the front steps in front of his sisters Tabitha and Troy

The haunting is wonderful (just the right level of creepy), but I may have loved Barnaby’s family even more. Special mention goes to Tabitha, who is “writing the world’s greatest novel, but no one was allowed to read it until she was twenty-one and it was published.” She takes notes on everything that happens, and as soon as it's clear that Barney’s faint is not dangerous she begins to study him from all angles: “We’re such a healthy family, the chance of anyone fainting in the next ten years is absolutely nil.”

Portrait of the Writer as a Young Girl indeed!

Troy, meanwhile, is a dark and brooding teenager (but portrayed with affection, as dark and brooding teenagers often are not). And the children’s stepmother, Claire, is a refreshing Good Stepmother, particularly adored by Barney, whose own mother died when he was born: “before Claire had come he had not had much kindness and fussing so surely he was allowed to make up for it now,” Barney muses, contemplating whether to pretend to be just a bit sicker than he really feels after he faints just so Claire will look after him.

(Ultimately his desire not to worry Claire wins out. Claire is going to have a baby and, because of his own mother’s death in childbirth, Barney frets that any little thing might result in a similar outcome to Claire’s pregnancy.)

There is also a father but he is just kind of There. Something had to give in order to lavish Tabitha, the true MVP of this book, with sufficient page time to investigate What Is Up with This Ghost.

I will not tell you What Is Up with the Ghost but I did find the investigation tremendously satisfying. The ending is perhaps a bit rushed (the danger of those years when children’s books were so very short!), but overall an excellent book. We liked The Haunting so much that we are going to read The Changeover next.

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Over the course of our reading, littlerhymes and I have managed to hit books from most of the major English-speaking countries: Australia (Mary Grant Bruce’s Billabong series), Canada (L.M. Montgomery’s Anne & Emily series; especially sorry I didn’t post about these), England (Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series, ditto), New Zealand (Margaret Mahy, although if there IS a famous New Zealand children’s books series from the days of yore please let us know), US (various Louisa May Alcott, still ongoing, and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books), and Wales (Jenny Nimmo’s Magicians Trilogy).

That leaves just Scotland and Ireland. Do either of them have a classic, iconic children’s book series? If not, we also take children’s fantasy from the second half of the 20th century.