Malcolm Saville (1901–1982)

The second book in the Lone Pine series. These twenty books are British fiction for children that were written from 1943 to 1978. It's about a bunch of kids who form a club and have adventures in the Welsh countryside. This one, from 1944, was written during WWII.

In my mind I can't help comparing it to that other British writer of children's adeventures, Enid Blyton. There are some similarities, like the group of boys and girls having their holidays in the countryside, relatively free from adult supervision, playing and having adventures.

I find this books more down-to-earth than Blyton's, more connected with a real location. At the same time, I don't think Saville was as good a storyteller as Blyton. His adventure is less focused. Another reviewer wrote "the kids run around like they have ADHD and an accomodating adult is never far away to provide food or shelter". And that's spot on. They run around, and the adventure kind of happens, but they do not seem to enjoy the same independence from adults and the same awareness of the adventure as Blyton's characters.

On the plus side, I found the twins more amusing than in the first book. They are still up to their annoying customs, mind you, but I'm getting used to them and seeing the funny side of their anctics. They provide a welcome dose of individuality and zaniness.… (más)

Published in 1943, in the middle of World War II.

The Mortons (mother, elder son David and 9-year-old twins Dickie and Mary) are evacuated to Shropshire during the war, while the father is on the front. The children explore the area, make new friends and form the Lone Pine Club, whose aim is "exploring and watching birds and animals and tracking strangers". Mysterious strangers, kidnappings and explosives are all part of this gripping tale.

This is the first Lone Pine book, a series of 20 novels published from 1943 to 1978. It's a story clearly influenced by other British authors of adventure works for children like Arthur Ransome ("Swallows and Amazons" series) and Enid Blyton ("Famous Five" and other series).

Like the adventure works of Ransome and Blyton, here we have a group of children enjoying their holidays playing outdoors and exploring with their friends. This story is perhaps not as gloriously idyllic as Swallows and Amazons, or as tightly plotted and exciting as many of Blyton's adventures, but at the beginning it features some very vivid descriptions of the Shropshire hills, enough to inspire the imagination and thirst for adventure of its young readers.

The story is about wartime spies and saboteurs. The children are involved but never have the full picture of what is going on, and only at the end they get the whole thing explained to them. That seems to me a weakness because, although it makes perhaps for a more realistic depiction of how children might get involved with something like that, it's not as exciting as stories where they knowingly defeat the bad guys. Oh, and the young twins are a bit annoying at times.

Still, a good read and a very nice children's adventure story, from a time when children still played outdoors all day instead of spending their time with the internet and social networks.… (más)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The first edition since 1946, with full colour illustrations throughout.

'At last she reached the brow of the hill ... now the country opened out below her and she looked down into a wide and lovely valley ... Still patched with snow the little fields spread like a carpet below her and here and there a farmhouse with barns and golden ricks was clearly seen. Across the plain ran, straight as a ruler, a railway line and she saw a toy train puffing and crawling across the picture.'

Malcolm Saville's classic novel is about eleven-year old Jane's discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle's farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London. This deeply-felt novel was written while Saville was extending his range as a writer, alongside his very successful Lone Pine adventure series, and nature anthologies for children. Inspired by the experiences of Saville's own god-daughter, this marvellous novel is full of the wonder of discovery, as well the happiness of regaining health, making friends, and learning to love the natural world. The novel is also a record of rural England eighty years ago, written by one of the great twentieth century English nature writers.

The Introduction is written by Hazel Sheeky Bird of the University of Newcastle. The illustrations by Bernard Bowerman have been reproduced from the first edition.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A quiet, gentle read for your tween-years reader. Beautiful reprint edition of a very prolific author for children's post-WWII novel. It follows Jane, a young girl recuperating from a serious illness at her aunt and uncle's farm in rural England. The framing device is, I know you'll know from the off, an excuse to write an elegy for the rural life that generations of people around the world were abandoning in increasing numbers as the world adjusted to new realities.

The text is, of course, not telling you this directly. It's a very sweet, very detailed love-letter to a vanishing time as it faded away. The reason it is interesting to read now is the world is rediscovering a need, once amply fulfilled, to recognize and relate our lives to the rhythms of the natural world. We do our descendants a service by giving them books of this sort. The way that urban outsider Jane comes to understand and treasure this world and its beauties and cycles is edifying without feeling condescending.

A kid today will read this with a sense of shock, I think, that this was ever a way of life that millions followed. It is clearly written and, while there are people winking in it, they are doing so from adult to child, so it's revoltingly condescending but not unexpected. The kind of folk who lived this life at that distant time:

...would have done the w-verb without thinking a thing of it. *shudder* The good old days, they were rotten.

The Introduction by Hazel Sheeky Bird is a wondeful overview of Saville's extended career as a writer for tweens and teens. It makes the book suitable for adults nostalgic for an earlier way of life by contextualizing it in its social milieu. I guess most of the people I'd gift it to, those between 11 and 14, will skip past that essay. If you were old enough to remember the Coronation, or the Rosenberg case, this book with Introduction will very likely hit every last nostalgia bump on your noggin.

Gifted to yourself or a younger reader, one who is beginning to wonder about the natural world around them, this novel of self-discovery, and family love, and the cycle of the seasons embedding them all, will hit a high note for #Booksgiving.… (más)

Second in the series about Lucy (12) and Humf (9), a sequel to 'The Secret of Galleybird Pit'. I thought this book more cohesive, and with less unpleasantness. Lucy's character is well-developed and her concern for both her parents feels very realistic. Indeed, her parents are believable: a hard-working mother, a fond but rather self-centred father who is easily distracted, full of ideas but little inclination to hard work.

There's some camping, and an ongoing plot involving some crooks stealing and re-selling items from unlocked farmhouses. I thought it a good story, well-told, although I suspect some of the adult interactions would go over the head of most 9- or 10-year-olds, which are the main target group.

But worth reading if you are a fan of Malcolm Saville's writing, and if you can find it as it's only available used.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/10/good-dog-dandy-by-malcolm-saville.h...… (más)