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Bittercon: "Forgotten Treasures"
What I think of as the "Harry Potter Effect" - a renewed interest in YA or children's fantasy - has resulted in the welcome recent republication of authors who had been well-known in certain circles, like DWJ, or well-known from the past, like Edward Eager. It has also seen the reprinting of some rather more obscure but equally deserving works, like A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond or Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard. I've been thinking for a while of beginning a series of posts on old forgotten treasures from my own collection - not necessarily SF or fantasy, but books I loved that I wondered if anyone else had heard of, that I think deserve a bigger audience and potential reprinting. So, I thought I'd launch that series here, and invite others on my flist or from the bigger ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
bittercon community, to link comments to posts about their own forgotten but deserving treasures.
My first oldy but goody is Ellen Kindt McKenzie's
Drujienna's Harp, which begins on a day in an unnamed city in what seems to be our world - indeed I've always assumed it was San Franciso. It is uncharacteristically hot, and the sky is a strange translucent pink. Tha and her brother Duncan visit a curio shop and pick up a bottle that the shop-owner warns them has a curse on it. They are instantly transported to another world.
Of relevance to one of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias's panel topics on world building, this is one of the most distinct and well developed worlds I remember encountering in children's fantasy. It has almost a quality of the surreal, with its pink sky, killing winds, geographic areas spreading out in concentric circles from a mysterious and deadly mound in the center. It is also unusual in children's fantasy for its bleak picture of political totalitarianism. The inhabitants are kept in a kind of controlled state of unknowing; asking too many questions is punishable by imprisonment or death. Yet there are mysterious Histories and a Prophecy, suppressed but not forgotten, that hint of "two" who will come and put the world right - or destroy it. This book deals with many extremely serious and important themes: ignorance, real or feigned, the importance not so much of physical courage but of moral convictions. Tha is a strong and believable heroine and there is a cast of well-drawn supporting characters, from the morose Eshone and even more grim Acheron to the delightful "Know-nothing" Zacapoos.
Like Victoria Walker's equally obscure but not entirely forgotten work, The Winter of Enchantment, this fascinating novel is now listed on ABE with absurdly high prices. I used to borrow it time and again from the library, and managed to snag a copy a few years ago at a less than astronomical price, and I treasure it. Just writing about it now makes me think I should reread it again - I suspect it will not have lost its magic.
So now it's your turn! How many of you have read any of the books I mention, especially this one? What are your own forgotten treasures? And don't forget to write a review of your favourite and link it here.
bittercon community, to link comments to posts about their own forgotten but deserving treasures.My first oldy but goody is Ellen Kindt McKenzie's
Drujienna's Harp, which begins on a day in an unnamed city in what seems to be our world - indeed I've always assumed it was San Franciso. It is uncharacteristically hot, and the sky is a strange translucent pink. Tha and her brother Duncan visit a curio shop and pick up a bottle that the shop-owner warns them has a curse on it. They are instantly transported to another world.
Of relevance to one of
sartorias's panel topics on world building, this is one of the most distinct and well developed worlds I remember encountering in children's fantasy. It has almost a quality of the surreal, with its pink sky, killing winds, geographic areas spreading out in concentric circles from a mysterious and deadly mound in the center. It is also unusual in children's fantasy for its bleak picture of political totalitarianism. The inhabitants are kept in a kind of controlled state of unknowing; asking too many questions is punishable by imprisonment or death. Yet there are mysterious Histories and a Prophecy, suppressed but not forgotten, that hint of "two" who will come and put the world right - or destroy it. This book deals with many extremely serious and important themes: ignorance, real or feigned, the importance not so much of physical courage but of moral convictions. Tha is a strong and believable heroine and there is a cast of well-drawn supporting characters, from the morose Eshone and even more grim Acheron to the delightful "Know-nothing" Zacapoos.Like Victoria Walker's equally obscure but not entirely forgotten work, The Winter of Enchantment, this fascinating novel is now listed on ABE with absurdly high prices. I used to borrow it time and again from the library, and managed to snag a copy a few years ago at a less than astronomical price, and I treasure it. Just writing about it now makes me think I should reread it again - I suspect it will not have lost its magic.
So now it's your turn! How many of you have read any of the books I mention, especially this one? What are your own forgotten treasures? And don't forget to write a review of your favourite and link it here.
Re: part 2 - the rest
Someday I might achieve moderation...
I wish there were a revival of kids' non-fantasy books as well...
I loved Hilda van Stockum's books - Winged Watchmen is such a simple, powerful book (WWII Holland); Andries is another simple story, but with small, personal challenges - no Nazis! She has a grouping set in Ireland and another in (I think) the US.
Ransome's Swallows & Amazons books are fabulous, imaginative as all get out, but only two aren't straight real-world stories (and those two were framed as stories created by the kids in the other books). Pigeon Post and Winter Holiday have always been favorites of mine...
For the much younger set: Francis Lattimore's books have always delighted me. Her Little Pear books are very special. I think they have either been or are about to be reissued (hurrah!)
I was even more excited that the Milly Molly Mandy stories (or at least selections) are readily available now... My mother did me an injustice in introducing me to so many British authors without making sure I had my own copies of all of them!
Although I devoured folk and fairy tales, myths and legends, and a very respectable assortment of sci-fi fantasy, my first love as a younger person was for historical fiction - I think because that is where I found the most vivid world building and characterization... whereas adult historical fiction rarely lives up to those standards.
I cannot, even in my wildest fantasies, imagine a kids' historical fiction book becoming an international best seller and inspiring publishers to reissue all the old treasures...
In no particular order, here are some titles/authors which came to mind:
Nobody's Garden
De Angeli's Thee Hannah and related books
Kate Seredy (especially Singing Tree)
Sally Watson (spunky heroines, rose-tinted history, engaging story lines - and vivid characters)
Cynthia Harnett (Caxton's Challenge is a family favorite)
Esther Hautzig (Endless Steppe haunted my dreams as a child - being a young Jewish girl living in relative comfort it resonated strongly)
Madeline Polland (Shattered Summer is bittersweet, and for an older audience than some of the others, Queen Without a Crown is probably her best known.. she has adult hist-fic as well, but it isn't nearly as *alive*.)
Hester Burton (Beyond Weir Bridge made a vivid, permanent impression.. and is the story which prompted me to track down this author and her books as an adult. Thank G-d for a mother who can take a tangled, muddled story description and point me to the right book! In spite of all terror was another very memorable one... I keep hoping I'll find more than the 6 or 8 books I've managed to collect...)
Margot Bernary-Isbert's The Ark (and Rowan Farm). Post WWII Germany... from the perspective a displaced German girl. First rate (RF is less well written, but worth it for the continuation of the story).
I will spare you all my even longer list of hard to impossible to find picture books...
Eliana
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Madeline Polland! Her Deirdre is one of the most beautiful, romantic love stories ever written, but I was absolutely shattered by the ending (of course, it doesn't end well, but I was unfamiliar with the legend the first time I read it...). She also wrote at least one adult novel that I loved, another romance, but I can't remember the title.
I liked Hester Burton a lot, too. My own favourite was Time of Trial
By the way, my mum used to read the Milly Molly Mandy books to me when I was very young, and I STILL HAVE MY COPY!! I'm very fortunate to have had a mum who loved books as much as I do and didn't part with ANY of mine...
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My mother had three main avenues for discovering new books: The Hornbook (sometimes she'd get a babysitter and go read the really old back issues at the university library), British book catalogs (I think she ordered most frequently from Baker books - we got so many wonderful things that way!), and serendipity (expeditions to used bookstores were a regular part of my childhood).
...and yes there was a very Anglo slant to our literary education! My mother even ordered old A and O level exams for us to do for fun together (we were an eccentric family!). It is only as an adult that I have begun to appreciate American literature - how much of that is innate preference and how much environmental training I'm not sure.
My mother still has most of the books we had as kids, but she hasn't wanted to part with them! Fortunately, I began building my personal book collection at an early age...
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My historical writer was Rosemary Sutcliff - I think I read every single one of them and loved them all. And Hester Burton, and Barbara Willard.
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Oh, yes!! I haven't reread her books in such a very long time (my husband did the rereads to screen them for our kids, so I missed that opportunity... perhaps someone will choose one, or more, as a bedtime story). I remember loving Flame colored tafetta (is that the right title?) and Warrior Scarlet... and being captivated by Tristan and Iseult.
My kids and I used her retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey in our homeschool (fabulous, fabulous books - beautifully done with evocative illustrations. Similarly wonderful is In Search of a Homeland by Penelope Lively (another underappreciated author!
.. how could I have left off Barbara Willard? My older girls have been rereading her recently - and clamoring for us to but more of her Mantlemass chronicles so they don't have to wait for the ILLs to come it)
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Perhaps because my earliest exposures to history were through stories, both actual fiction and kids' level biographies, I never understood how anyone could be bored by it. Or how anyone who enjoyed sci-fi/fantasy could fail to be enthralled by history...
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I loved Hilda van Stockum's books"
Her books have been republished by Bethlehem books.
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Thank you!
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Did any of his books have a story in which some children get lost somewhere in/on the North Sea and make pets of a pair of puffins they called Huffin and Puffin?