A 111-year-old treasure by Sheena Wilkinson

 Another of my occasional series about books from the past.

Last week I went to a conference in Bristol, a biannual affair discussing a wide range of mostly twentieth-century children’s books. I enjoyed hearing talks on writers like Rosemary Sutcliff, Noel Streatfeild and Geoffrey Trease, as well as the Chalet School, etc.

One of the highlights is the book sale. Specialist dealers and delegates alike bring hundreds of children’s books – the rare, the eye-wateringly expensive and occasionally the shabby old friend that you have to buy because it’s exactly the edition they had in the Cregagh Library in 1979. I told myself I had to be ruthless. I’d had a huge clear-out, and  I’m not a person of great means. 

But I couldn’t pass this by.The Story of the Treasure Seekers, along with The Railway Children, was always my favourite E. Nesbit. (I have always preferred my stories without magic, where possible.) This copy, dated 1907, is not a first (the book was published in 1899) but it's certainly the oldest copy I have seen. As you can see, it's fine and clean, a vibrant red with gilt tooling. An object of beauty. My own old copy was a 1960s Puffin paperback from a jumble sale, charming because it was my own, but not to be compared to this beauty. My fiftieth birthday is a fortnight away; I decided to treat myself. 

This isn’t about the humour and heart of the story, though if you are unfamiliar with the fortunes of the house of Bastable, I suggest you remedy that forthwith. It’s about the book itself. It’s dedicated to‘Baby’, with all love from Daddy & Mummy on her birthday, Sept 13^th, 1912.   It was customary then for children  to be known as Baby for the first year or so of life, especially in larger families, but I don’t know if ‘Baby’ received this book as an infant –  it doesn’t say which birthday, so it might indeed be her birth day – or as an older child. In which case, how embarrassing still to be known as ‘Baby’ -- she might have been the soppy sort of child the Bastables would have despised. The book had been around for 13 years by 1912: I like to think it was a childhood favourite of 'Daddy' or 'Mummy', and they were impatient to pass it on to their own child. 

But ‘Baby’ never read The Story of the Treasure Seekers; I am sure of it. Not this copy anyway. It’s very, very clean. Suspiciously so for a child’s book that is now 111 years old. Perhaps she grew up not to care much for reading. 

what Baby was missing 

If, as I suspect, she was given the book as an infant, to ‘grow into’, she would have been ready to read it around 1922. Maybe she preferred Angela Brazil or the first of the Dimsie books. Or perhaps, as she would have been six in 1918, she was one of the 50 million people who died in the great flu pandemic. Or her parents did, and she was orphaned, sent away perhaps without her books.

We will never know. And whatever happened to ‘Baby’, this book, carefully chosen by her parents, has outlived them all. I don’t know where it has been through the whole of the twentieth century, but I know where it’s going to be for the rest of my life. And it may not stay quite so pristine because it is going to be taken down, and loved, and most importantly read.

Protecting our Children by Marie-Louise Jensen

I had a different post in mind for today, but want instead to respond to Katherine Langrish and Barbara Mitchelhill's posts a few days ago about bleakness and violence in children's books. It's a subject I have strong feelings about.

What I have always loved about children's books, is the comparative safety and comfort they offer. Terrible things can happen, there can be danger, unhappiness and darkness. But you know for sure that things will somehow end up all right. Perhaps not for all the characters, and perhaps not a completely happy ending. But there will be light and comfort and a resolution of some kind. This is no longer the case.

I know real life isn't like this. None better. Perhaps that's why I crave this in fiction. Young people are going to be exposed to reality sooner or later - some will be confronted with loss and pain very young indeed. It's not about pretending the world is all wonderful when it isn't. It's not about lying to children to protect them. It's about fiction finding hope even in these bleak situations. When it doesn't, I wonder what the point of it is? What kind of message are we asking children to take away with them?

It bothers me that there seems to be a fashion and atmosphere of pushing at boundaries and taboos in children's fiction - to see just how grim writers can get away with being and still being published. And the shock factor is often endorsed with prize listings, which raises these books above more positive ones as though they are more imprtant and meaningful.

But are they? Is it not a greater message to a young person to help them find the positive or seek towards resolutions than to sink into a pit of despair? I believe that it is. Especially when you consider that British children are so often ranked as 'the unhappiest in Europe' or have 'the lowest self-esteem in the developed world' etc etc in the surveys the media loves so much.

The trend is only reflecting the one in adult fiction/television of course - there it is also towards the more violent and shocking too. I notice it because I rarely see television (I don't have it) and on the occasions I do, I'm horrified by the graphic nature of the modern crime series. They weren't like that years ago. They didn't show horrifically mutilated bodies or linger on scenes of agony and terror in death.

And as we expose ourselves more, there's also a culture against protecting children. If you choose to enforce film certificates in your home, you are far more likely to be laughed to scorn by friends and acquaintances than praised for obeying the law or protecting your children. The implication is there's something wrong with you.

I have learned over the past few years that books I would hesitate to give to children because of the appalling images they've left in my own mind, sometimes don't bother children nearly as much as they bother me. A child living a secure childhood may enjoy vicariously experiencing grim scenarios, abuse, neglect and even death. It doesn't upset them as much as an adult who's been through it in real life and has a fuller knowledge of the distress involved, or who reads the book as a parent, imagining his or her own child in the situations.
Nonetheless, the trend concerns me. Childhood is short, it's unspeakably precious and it never comes back. The security you get as a child stays with you throughout your adult years. A child who is protected and happy, who feels secure, is less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and low self-esteem as an adult.

You have the rest of your life to see the bleakness, the misery and the lack of hope - if that is your lot in life, or if that is where you choose to focus. Because it is partly a choice. Sometimes life can throw dreadful things at you. But it can be how you deal with them. And that's what fiction can offer us above all.

For example: you can look at a scene in the park and choose to admire the beautiful autumn colours, the rich green grass or the children playing happily on the swings. Or you can spend your time in the park focusing on the dead squirrel under one of the trees and dwell at length on much it must have suffered before it died. Is that deeper or more meaningful than the beauty? I don't think that it is. Let's make sure we don't forget to teach children to see and value the beauty.