How does one start to hunt for plants? My own love of plants began with Cecily Mary Barker’s picture-and-verse Flower Fairy books, Yet the works are not pure fantasy: Barker’s charming fairies, first appearing in 1923, were based on drawings of real children in her sister’s kindergarten, while the detailed flowers and settings are painted with meticulous, botanically-accurate skill. The Flower Fairies taught me- and no doubt many others – to find and identify common plants, even though some of those flowers are rarer than they used to be.
However, Barker’s pretty fairies
- still hovering around today – can surely only charm a very particular young audience.
There’s space for bolder books about the history of the plants and stories
for older boys and girls who would welcome tales of adventure.
I was very
pleased to come across JACK FORTUNE AND THE SEARCH FOR THE HIDDEN VALLEY,
a novel for 8-12 year olds, written by fellow History Girl Sue Purkiss.
Inspired by the lives of
18th century plant-hunters, Sue has written a fast-moving historical adventure
story. Jack Fortune, the young hero, is
energetic and most interestingly naughty. Bored, and not allowed to attend school,
he can’t resist devising tricks that shame his stern
widowed Aunt Constance and horrify her genteel guests.
As a character, Jack is
immediately likeable - and trouble! When he accidentally damages a
priceless object, Constance summons her brother, Uncle
Edmund, insisting that he take responsibility for his young nephew.
Uncle
Edmund refuses; not
only is the scholarly bachelor unused to children but he is about to
depart on his first
plant-hunting trip to India.
Jack, hearing this exciting news, wants to accompany the expedition so
Uncle Edmund reluctantly agrees, while Aunt Constance, unable to face
any more disobedience, agrees despite the dangers.
From this point on Jack
and his uncle – and the reader – experience a new life full of challenge and
interesting people and places. They sail to Calcutta, cross the Great Plain and travel
through the jungle before reaching a high mountain kingdom with a hidden
valley. All the way, Jack and his uncle face setbacks and dangers: vagabonds,
wild animals, “mountain sickness” and, at last, reports of a huge, legendary
being who brings death to any intruders in the Hidden Valley.
Moreover, Jack soon realises that an unknown traitor is spoiling the expedition’s
food supplies and stirring up problems with local villagers. Who wishes them ill? Is it Sonam, their guide
or Thondup, the heir to the throne who accompanies the party, and whom Jack has
begun to admire?
Sue Purkiss’s plot moves
along with plenty of pace and action and just enough description to fix the
story in its historical time and place without overloading her young reader’s
enjoyment. She also touches lightly and skillfully on darker issues such as
servants and colonisation, but lets the bold adventure end as happily as it
should.
However, I felt the book
was about more than the plant-hunting quest: Jack and Uncle Edmund make a
wonderfully odd and warm partnership, and the hardships met on the expedition
teach them more about the other.
Bookish Uncle Edmund
slowly reveals his bravely determined nature and his passion for plant-hunting.
Gradually, Jack sees the burning passion that lies behind Uncle Edmund’s
search, and his desperate hope that the plant will bring him fame, fortune and
the approval of the influential Sir Joseph Banks when - and if - they ever return to London.
Meanwhile, faced with real
demands and responsibilities rather than endless tea-parties and polite
manners, Jack becomes the boy-hero he was meant to be and is even able to
accept his own inherited artistic gifts and inheritance.
One of the particular
reasons I enjoyed JACK FORTUNE AND THE SEARCH FOR THE HIDDEN VALLEY was that,
despite the difficulties Jack and his Uncle face, the adventure is a positive
and hopeful experience and one that might encourage children to look beyond
everyday life and issues in school and out into a much wider world with all its
interweaving histories.
Penny Dolan
ps. Years
after the Flower Fairies, my gardening interests led to a set of children’s
stories based on the history of British gardening, written for re-telling at
RHS Harlow Carr gardens.
NB. Alma Books have also
created some downloadable activities to support of this title:
http://almabooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Jack-Fortune-Activity-Book.pdf as well as an interview with the
author Sue Purkiss: http://almabooks.com/interview-sue-purkiss-author-jack-fortune/
1 comment:
Thanks for this lovely review, Penny!
Post a Comment