Bittercon: "Forgotten Treasures"

[intertext]

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 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.

Comments

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I meant to say, I loved Edward Eager's books when I was younger. They remind me a little bit of Lucy Boston's Green Knowe series, another set of favorites (those, I've purchased in adulthood - again, they've been nicely reissued in the past few years.)

[gillo]

I adored Eager too - especially because he was so respectful about Nesbit. It's surprising that some of her books are not in print either!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I came to E. Nesbit through Eager. Loved all of his, and then loved all of hers, too :-)

[gillo]

I particularly liked the fantasy books she wrote, like "The House of Arden" and "Wet Magic" - very little-known these days.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

:-) ... two that I hadn't found, I'll have to confess. I must have only found the common ones. But this is great-because now I have two more to read. Thanks!

[gillo]

You haven't lived till you've met the Mouldiwarp! Like a Psammead but a British native and even grumpier.

I seem to recall there was also "Harding's Luck" as well as "The House of Arden". She wrote quite a few more fantasies than are known these days, sadly.

But look! I found the two above on the Internet!!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you thank you :-D

[curtana.livejournal.com]

House of Arden was always one of my very favorites - I don't recall Wet Magic, though, I'll have to check it out :)

[gillo]

It involved children going to an undersea world through an aquarium, by means of reciting "Sabrina Fair" from Milton's

Comus

. There was a bit I loved with a passion, in which heroes from their favourite books came to join in the fight.

I think I was very lucky as a child - our local library had a huge stock of elderly battered copies of Nesbit.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

OMG - Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I read many of Lucy Boston's books when I was a child, but had forgotten her name and all of the titles. All I knew was that at least one of them had Green in the title. As soon as I saw this mention, I knew these were the books.

I've tried many times to describe these books, but no one ever recognized them from my garbled descriptions. Oh, I'm so glad to know what to look for now. 8D

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Very glad to have been able to jog your memory :) They're all reprinted and quite affordable, fortunately!