While the first book Ballet for Drina stands on its own as a complete story, its primary purpose is to provide the necessary background information to set up the rest of the series.  Drina’s Dancing Year continues this format: it tells the story of Drina’s first year at the Dominick ballet school and of her determination to succeed on her own merit rather than revealing her secret, but it is also an important part in the overall arch of Drina’s journey towards becoming (as I assume she inevitably will, these being happy children’s books) a world class ballerina.  This book covers Drina starting at school, making friends with the poor but sweet Rose and enemies with proud, odious Queenie, and also Drina’s inexplicable failure to get a part in the Christmas show, which turns out to be less disappointing than she fears.

I was surprised at how well this book stood up to being reread.  Although some of the concerns and attitudes can seem a little old fashioned, Mrs Chester liking Rose in spite of her lower class stands out particularly) the story itself remains charming and engaging.  I found myself getting wrapped up in the little dramas of Drina’s life in spite of the outcome being obvious even if I hadn’t read the book before.

I think that Drina ages convincingly; this book shows her character developing in a way that is in line with a little girl who is one year older and a little more experienced.  She doesn’t change, but her traits become more subtle and I liked this.  The supporting characters continue to be likeable and just different enough to give them some interest, even if this is only in relation to Drina.  Estoril’s mean characters are all very similar, but they aren’t the focus of any of the books so far so this is less annoying than it could be.

The Drina books are a lovely series, and I continue to recommend them to anyone who enjoys old fashioned ballet stories.

Drina’s Dancing Year by Jean Estoril.  Published by Macdonald, 1988, pp. 176.  Originally published in 1958.

In the first installment in the series, Ballet for Drina, the reader is introduced to Drina, a little girl who lives with her grandparents, Mr and Mrs Chester, following the death of her mother and father when she was very young.  She loves to dance but has never been allowed to take lessons and her grandmother refuses to discuss why.  When Drina changes schools she makes friends with Jenny Pilgrim, who hates dancing and wants to work on a farm but whose mother insists she take ballet classes.  Eventually Mrs Chester bows to pressure and allows Drina to join in, until Mr Chester’s job takes the family away from Warwickshire and the ballet school that Drina loves to live in London.

This book was exactly how I remember it from when I was little: simple and uncomplicated but sweet and charming.  Reading as an adult there is never any real tension or suspense as it is abundantly clear how things are going to pan out from the very beginning, but I remember feeling every one of Drina’s emotions as she suffers the agonies of not knowing whether she will be able to continue with her beloved dancing classes.  It evokes the strong feelings of childhood, in which everything is either the best thing ever or the end of the world, very well, but does not do so in a reflective way which might broaden its appeal to adults as well.  Ballet for Drina is unashamedly a children’s book. 

I’m not sure how much of my enjoyment of this book is due to happy memories of having read it as a child, but it remains an absorbing way to pass an hour.  Sometimes it is nice to read a gentle, relaxing book in which there are no real surprises and everything works out for the best.

Ballet for Drina by Jean Estoril.  Published by Macdonald, 1988, pp. 176.  Originally published in 1957.

A Flower Wedding is an illustrated verse story describing the marriage of Lad’s Love and Miss Meadow Sweet and is essentially an excuse for Crane to mention the names of as many flowers as possible so that he can draw them all.  It is a very short piece, each page featuring a single couplet or half couplet which provides a caption for the accompanying image, but it is perfectly wrought.  Crane’s illustrations are stunning and his incorporation of all the different flowers, both into the poem and into the pictures, is skilfully done.

The edition of this book that I have is an absolutely beautiful object, and one of the best arguments in favour of printed books that I’ve had the pleasure of reading for some time.  It is bound in soft cream cloth with designs embossed on the boards and spine in gold; the corners are pleasantly rounded; the paper inside is thick and creamy; the endpapers are bright and eyecatching; and there is a pretty ribbon to mark your place.  It was produced by the V & A Museum to tie in with their new exhibition The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 and I can certainly see why.  This is a book that I’m very glad to own and will definitely be returning to to admire the illustrations regularly.

A Flower Wedding: Described by Two Wallflowers by Walter Crane.  Published by V&A, 2011, pp. 40.  Originally published in 1905

One of my aims for 2010 was to read all of C. S. Lewis Narnia books, so it seems appropriate that my final book for 2010 was The Last Battle (I apologise for being so behind with reviews; Christmas and New Year are not terribly convenient times for spending time on the computer).  Although I was already vaguely aware of what happened in the books and have dim recollections of the old BBC series, I’ve really enjoyed discovering the books properly and I’m sad to see it end.

In The Last Battle, all is not well in Narnia.  King Rilian, whom we met in The Silver Chair, is greeted with the disturbing news that the dryads’ trees are being cut down, talking Animals are being used as beasts of burden by the brutal Calormenes and all this appears to be happening at Aslan’s orders.  Meanwhile, Jill and Eustace, travelling back to school on the train, suddenly find themselves jolted back into Narnia where they join with King Rilian and the loyal folk of Narnia in fighting for survival against the Calormenes.

Unfortunately, I think that this book was the point at which C. S. Lewis’ interests and my own completely diverged.  Never before have I wished so much that I had read these books when I was young enough not to notice that I was being beaten around the head with the baseball bat of allegory.  What started out as subtle nuances and echoes of Christianity which worked well within the framework of the story became the story.  As I read the Narnia books for their stories, I was disappointed by this turn towards outright preaching, particularly as the ending which illustrated C. S. Lewis’ idea of Christianity wasn’t what I would have envisaged as a satisfactory ending on a narrative level.  I understand that this was his motive for writing the books and that my disappointment is because of my different priorities, but I do wish that he’d been able to (or more likely chosen to, I have no doubts about his writing capabilities) blend the two aspects of the book, fantasy adventure story and religious message, as seamlessly as he did in the previous books.

However, although I found the message a bit heavy handed, there was still much about this book that I loved.  I thought that the descriptions of the battle itself were very well executed: they convey both the tension and nervous excitement of waiting for things to happen and then the frenzy of confused activity as an attack takes place.  Considering this action takes up about half of the book, I was impressed at how Lewis sustained this level of intensity and it makes the book an easy one to whizz through.  I also thought that the introduction of Tash, the cruel god of the Calormenes, was an interesting touch and the image of him passing through Narnia is a chilling one.

It seems that in every book there’s at least one wonderful new character — Mr Tumnus and the Beavers in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Bree in The Horse and his Boy, Trumpkin in Prince Caspian, Reepicheep in The Voyage of the Dawntreader and Puddleglum in The Silver Chair – and in The Last Battle for me it was Shift the Ape and Puzzle the Donkey about whom I most enjoyed reading.  The dynamic between the two, Puzzle innocent and eager to please, Shift controlling and cunning, is established from the very beginning and it manages to be amusing even though it is quite dark and swiftly becomes one of the obvious references to Revelation.  This double act provides a light introduction to a book which develops into something quite serious and I thought it created a good contrast to the book’s later seriousness.

All in all, I’m sad to leave Narnia but, as a non-Christian, I wish I hadn’t left it so late to read and so had been able to enjoy the books without the religious message intruding on the stories.  Most of the time this wasn’t a problem, but The Last Battle was just a bit too overt for me to really enjoy it.

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis.  Illustrated by Paula Baynes.  Published by Diamond, 1996, pp. 172.  Originally published 1956.

The Narnia series has a great many things to recommend it to readers, but their chief appeal for me at this particular moment in time is how small and compact they are, thus making them the perfect books to read on the tube.  I’ll soon be looking for some new light reading (both literally and figuratively) to take the place of C. S. Lewis’ books though, as The Silver Chair brings me to the penultimate installment in the Narnia series and it has the distinct feel of a series winding down to its conclusion.

In this book, another new human is introduced to Narnia in the form of Jill Pole.  When trying to avoid the school bullies, Jill and Eustace implore Aslan to help them and soon find themselves in his country.  There he tasks them with finding King Caspian’s missing son and restoring him and so, assisted by Puddleglum the marshwiggle, they set out to find Prince Rilian .

Although, like The Voyage of the Dawntreader, this is essentially a quest book it felt much more continuous and natural, where I found the previous book too episodic and patchy.  It has a much more realistic scope and so events feel like a logical progression dependent on things that have happened before rather than a series of unconnected occurrences happening one after another.  As a result of this, I found The Silver Chair much more enjoyable to read than the previous book.  Many of the parts of the story were familiar rather than original, such as the children’s adventures in the city of giants and the silver chair itself, but Lewis tells them in such a charming way that I didn’t mind. Other parts, however, are wonderfully new: I thought that Underland and Bism were excellent creations.

What made this book so enjoyable to read was the presence of Puddleglum the marshwiggle.  His irrepressible gloom and pessimism provides an unexpected comic touch which had me smiling throughout.  The Silver Chair shows a marked movement towards the end of days state which will emerge fully in The Last Battle with the book taking a turn towards being darker and more serious (I think this book is the first time when a good character dies and is not brought back to life) this light relief is a welcome change of tone.  I’ll be sad when I finish my exploration of Narnia, but I look forward to seeing how exactly Lewis manages to do it.

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis.  Illustrated by Paula Baynes.  Published by Diamond, 1996, pp. 1991.  Originally published 1953.

Back in June of 2010 it came to my attention that, although they may be firmly embedded in my consciousness, I had never actually read all of the Narnia books.  This struck me as something of an oversight and I resolved to rectify the situation as soon as possible and read them all before the end of the year (which I did, I’m just a little late in posting reviews).  After the first four books, I had had quite enough of earnest children solving problems for the time being and was suffering from Narnia fatigue and so set them aside.  I had forgotten about completing the series until I saw all the promotional material for the new film of The Voyage of the Dawntreader and being thoroughly irked by it.  (Why the strange pronunciation?  You don’t say lawn mower or horse rider, you say lawn mower and horse rider with the stress on the first thing, so why on earth would it be Dawntreader?)  My irritation gave me the motivation I needed to return to the series.

The Voyage of the Dawntreader is, chronologically, the fifth book in the Narnia series.  In it, Lucy and Edmund are drawn into Narnia through a painting, bringing with them their reluctant and sulky cousin, Eustace.  Together, the three of them join King Caspian, older now than the last time we saw him in Prince Caspian, as he journeys to the eastern edge of the known world to discover what happened to the men loyal to his father whom his evil uncle sent away on a sea voyage from which none of them have ever returned.

Sadly, The Voyage of the Dawntreader was not my favourite of the Narnia books; that honour, rather unconventionally it seems, belongs to The Magician’s Nephew.  The length of the Narnia books does not really lend itself to an epic journey storyline and so  I felt that this book was very unevenly paced, with excessive amounts of time devoted to some events while others were skimmed over in a few sentences.  Consequently, some of the episodes, such as Eustace and the dragon and Lucy and invisible voices, were excellent and well developed, whereas others felt rushed and perfunctory.  I thought that the rapid dismissal of the island of dreams, one of the most interesting ideas in the book, was particularly disappointing.  However, although plenty of people write better quest novels than Lewis, it is still an enjoyable read.

I was surprised at how much I liked the development of Eustace’s character, as Lewis manages to show how irritating he is without making him annoying to read about.  His indignant diary, his outrage at not being able to contact the British embassy and his stubborn refusal to believe things despite all evidence to the contrary add wonderful touches of comedy to the book.  This light relief is particularly welcome as I feel that The Voyage of the Dawntreader represents the point at which the series begins to become more serious: although allegory is an ever-present feature of the Narnia books I felt that it became a lot more overt in this book and there are several dark references to the future of the children and of Narnia itself.  Although I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the others so far, I think that it played a necessary role in the trajectory of the series as a whole, and I look forward to seeing what comes next and how Lewis builds on this foundation.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis.  Illustrated by Pauline Baynes.  Published by Diamond, 1996,pp. 189.  Originally published in 1955.

Five Children and It tells the story of Robert, Anthea, Cyril and Jane and their baby brother, known affectionately as the Lamb.  While holidaying in the country, their parents are both unexpectedly called away for various reasons, leaving the children to entertain themselves all summer.  On the first day, they go to play in an old gravel pit and there they uncover a mysterious creature: a Psammead.  These sand fairies have the ability to grant wishes which will last only until sunset.  However, the old saying that you should be careful what you wish for proves true, and things often don’t work out quite as the children plan as their summer suddenly becomes much less dull and far more fraught with adventure.

There are so many things in this book which I find irresistible.  First and foremost, I love the way that the world of the five children is completely conventional with the exception of one strange and magical thing: the Psammead.  In fact, the world is so ordinary that the story seems almost believeable, and I remember spending many a day after I first encountered Five Children and It industriously searching beaches and sandpits for any burrowing sand fairies.  Although the Psammead grants one wish a day for the children, everything else happens exactly as it would without the magical element.  Thus when the children wish to be as beautiful as the day, neither their little brother nor the servants recognise them and they have to beg for food from neighbouring houses and they frequently get into trouble when their escapades keep them out past supper time.  Even their wish that the servants won’t notice whatever they wish for, an attempt to avoid getting into trouble, only leads to more disaster and scoldings.  In fact, the children’s wishes usually either don’t work out as they might have hoped or lead them into unforeseen scrapes from which they must extricate themselves without being able to explain to any grown ups about the magical happenings which have resulted in these strange situations.  This makes for a far more satisfying book, in my opinion.  A book that simply chronicled the successful wishes about a group of children might be entertaining if it were well written, but it would be fairly one dimensional.  However, a book about wishes that backfire and wishes that aren’t necessarily what you intended is an engaging idea with endless possibilities.  The pleasure in reading Five Children and It comes not so much from seeing the children enjoy the results of their wishes but in watching them deal with the unexpected but inevitable consequences of those wishes.

The story is brought to life by E. Nesbit’s wonderful narrative voice which permeates the book.  She adopts a conspiratorial tone, as though she is letting the reader in on a big secret which makes the story feel even more special.  Her humorous asides on every subject are a joy to read and can be appreciated just as much by adults as by children.  She passes judgement on the children, on the adults around them and on grown ups outside the world of the book, but she does so in a way that is never condemning although it is accurate and astute.  She invites the reader to share these opinions and so thoroughly draws you into the narrative.

The Psammead itself is a wonderful creation.  Although Nesbit calls it a fairy, it definitely isn’t what springs to mind when using the word, as you can see from H. R. Millar’s illustrations from my edition of the book.  Fat and furry with eyes on the end of stalks like a snail, it is a thoroughly original creation.  It is crotchety and short-tempered (although with good reason, I feel, being pestered daily by five children) and it makes a refreshing change to have an unwilling, grumpy magical creature in a children’s book, rather than one that is obliging.  One could almost suspect, as the children do, that the Psammead is wilfully misinterpreting their wishes in order to land them in difficult situations deliberately.  The presence of this creature certainly adds to the humour of the book and helps to make it a wonderful read.

Reading this book has filled me with the urge to watch the old BBC adaptation of Five Children and It.  I’m sure it would look horribly out of date now, but it had a great many virtues in its day (not least of which was teaching me how to pronounce ‘Psammead’) and I’m feeling all nostalgic.  Does anyone else remember it?

Five Children and It by E. Nesbit.  Illustrated by H. R. Millar.  Published by Puffin, 1978, pp. 215.  Originally published 1902.

Title:

Author: Louisa May Alcott

Published: Honor Books, 1999, pp. 122.  Originally published 1870s

Genre: Children’s short stories

Blurb: “If someone would only come and take me away!  I’m so tired of living here I don’t think I can bear it much longer,” Patty cries.  Patty’s life in an orphanage is a dark world with little hope, beauty or love.  Even after a family finally does come for Patty, it is only because they need a servant.  But there is one person who does care about Patty.  And soon Patty’s life will never be the same!

When, where and why: I have to confess, I actually bought this for someone else as a Christmas gift.  I don’t usually read books before I give them to people (in fact, I never have before) but then my train home was delayed and I finished my other book and so I had nothing to read!  I was in a state of panic until I remembered that I had this book snuggled safely in a padded envelope in the depths of my bag, heading home to be wrapped.  Desperate times call for desperate measures and so I gave in to necessity and read the book.

What I thought: I firmly believe that any book is better than no book, and that if I were to be marooned on a desert island with nothing to read but a stack of Christine Feehan’s terrible vampire books I would plough gamely through them rather than sit around without a book.  Of course, I wouldn’t be able to hold anything resembling an intelligent conversation with normal people if I were ever rescued (although I would have an impressive collection of euphemisms for genitalia), but that’s besides the point.  Nevertheless, while The Quiet Little Woman, a book of three festive short stories by Louisa May Alcott, filled a bored half hour while stuck in a siding somewhere around Basingstoke, it swiftly transpired that I found it only marginally better than having no book at all, disappointingly.

Anyone approaching this book expecting to read something like Louisa May Alcott’s far more famous Little Women is likely to be equally disappointed, I’m afraid.  I found Little Women to be charming and hearwarming yet, although The Quiet Little Woman and Tilly’s Christmas (the first two stories in the collection) follow a similar narrative trajectory of poor but worthy girls finding love, warmth and happiness through their own selfless actions, they never achieved this end and so came across as rather sanctimonious.  I think this is partly because the stories are too short to allow much character development; the March girls may be good at heart but they all have faults which make them interesting, whereas Tilly and Patty are never anything other than perfect and boring.

Rosa’s Tale is a better story, as it deals with a horse rather than a painfully good child and so the rather hamfisted moral message which so irritated me in the first two stories is thankfully absent.  However, it reads like a paraphrase of Black Beauty rather than an original story and feels rushed.  Having read this book, I don’t think that the short story is Alcott’s medium, or at least it is not one which translates very well for a modern reader with modern expections.  On the whole, I found the collection to be sweet to the point of being sickly and moralistic to the point of being trite.

Where this book goes: This book is winging its way to the person for whom I bought it.  I really hope that they like it more than I did.

Tea talk: As this was a train book, there was no tea to be had.

Troubled times have come to the magical land of Narnia. Gone are the days of peace and freedom when the animals, dwarfs, trees and flowers could live in absolute peace and harmony. Civil war is dividing the kingdom and final destruction is close at hand. Prince Caspian, the rightful heir to the throne, resolves to bring back Narnia’s glorious past, so he blows his magic horn to call up Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund to help in his difficult task.  (Goodreads Summary)

While it’s becoming apparent that none of the Narnia books are going to rival ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ for the honour of being my favourite so far, I definitely enjoyed this next installment in the series. I thought the book did an excellent job of developing the characters of the four Pevensie children; they were markedly different, but it seemed a logical character progression after the events of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ rather than an arbitrary change. I also enjoyed the new characters introduced in this volume, particularly Reepicheep the mouse, and I hope that some of them will appear again in the remaining installments.

Curiously, some events which seem as though they should be very important and hold great significance for the characters are not given a great deal of time or attention, whereas other less vital situations are dwelt on more thoroughly. Although I think this is a shame, it is a very minor complaint. Most of the story was well-paced and exciting and on the whole I found ‘Prince Caspian’ to be an excellent book.

Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis.  Published by Diamond, 1996, pp. 190.  Originally Published in 1950.

N.B. This is an old review written in 2010 and posted on Goodreads and LibraryThing before I started keeping track of all the books I read here at Old English Rose Reads.  I’ve decided to keep copies here so that this remains a complete record of my reading since I started reviewing books for my own pleasure.

I’ve recently begun reading through the Narnia series for the first time, but this is the first book in which I had absolutely no idea what happens before I read it, which was a pleasant change. Much as I enjoyed it though, I felt that it was lacking some of the brilliance of ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ and ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ as it was set entirely in C. S. Lewis’ imaginary worlds, with no intrusion from the real world. Consequently it was lacking the lovely juxtaposing of the magic of Narnia with the practicality of England, although Lewis makes up for it with some delightfully out of place, old fashioned English phrases (my favourite being Shasta, a boy from an Arabian type culture, referring to another character as a ‘brick’; so very Famous Five). However, I get the impression that the awareness of the wider geography of the lands surrounding Narnia may serve some purpose later in the series and so this novel being set purely in and around Narnia may have a narrative purpose. Either way the story was still entertaining, I just didn’t love it as much as the first two books

The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis.  Published by Diamond, 1996, pp. 175.  Originally published in 1954.

N.B. This is an old review written in 2010 and posted on Goodreads and LibraryThing before I started keeping track of all the books I read here at Old English Rose Reads.  I’ve decided to keep copies here so that this remains a complete record of my reading since I started reviewing books for my own pleasure.