One Eye on the Grown-up

What interested me most, when I started reading the Carnegie Medal winning books from the beginning, was the prospect of discovering books and authors I'd never heard of, or who I'd heard of but had never read. I spent a lot of time, early on, exploring the backgrounds and connections of some of those authors, and I'm glad I did, especially in the case of Walter de la Mare whose novels, Memoirs of a Midget and The Three Royal Monkeys are truly extraordinary books which I doubt are much read today. Reading those early winners was a kind of literary archaeology, but now that I've entered the new millennium I'm not having quite as much fun, and I'm wondering why?

I am a confirmed re-reader of books I love. I don't know if this is a bad thing or not, but after reading a dozen or so new books I usually find myself going to the bookshelves and taking down a John le Carré, for example, or a thriller that I remember enjoying but read long enough ago to have forgotten the plot. I have other literary habits that appal my friends. If a book is tense I look at the end to make sure the protagonist makes it through. I'll do the same thing with movies sometimes, and if a series doesn't really grab me, or I don't think it's worth the investment of time, I'll watch the last episode just to see what happens. And then recently I wondered which of the Carnegie winners I've read so far I fancied re-reading. I almost hate to confess—that book is Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome, the very first winner published 88 years ago (and still in print!) 

So I read it again last week (for perhaps the fifth time). Despite the fact that an adult (and especially one who has read it before) can see what's going to happen, I can still get completely immersed in the story and especially in the place. It feels to me as if Arthur Ransome's Lake District is a place which I have real memories of, and that's strange because the Lake District in Ransome's books is the Lake District of his childhood and of his memory. It was already changed when he wrote about it. And in many ways, in its details, it's also an imaginary place. The geography is almost like a dream geography, familiar but somehow altered. It's the same with the geography of the Norfolk Broads where other Ransome books were set. My mother still lives in Horning and the real Horning is like a strangely altered version of the one in the books, and always was.

The other thing that really stood out on this re-reading was the brilliance of Ransome's handling of the children's imaginative play. He offers a range of perspectives on this. There's Dorothea, the budding novelist turning everything they do into a melodramatic romance. Dorothea is contrasted directly with her brother Dick, the scientist, for whom Nancy's overarching fantasy of being Wild West gold-rush prospectors, staking claims and fending off enemies, is almost irrelevant. When he wants to know more about how to test for gold he's all for consulting an adult, even the one who Nancy has cast as their mortal enemy.

Nancy is really interesting in this book. It's almost as if she's making herself carry her fantasies through, but every so often we see flashes of another, more mature person. Ransome knows that his readers aren't stupid. They know that all the stuff about pirates and prospecting for gold is make-belief, and it makes it even more real when we see that the children in the story know this too, and are able to switch at will between their fantasies and the real world. But what I really want to say is that this is most definitely a children's book.

Ransome liked to tell people that they should never write for a particular audience—that they should only write stories they themselves wanted to read. I think it's reasonable to say that Ransome was writing for the child in himself, but I'm pretty sure he knew where the money was, and when he wanted to write a story about evacuees at the beginning of the war he acceded readily to his publishers' prohibition. No war on any account.

And so, back to the 21st century. With Ruby Holler, the 2002 winner, Sharon Creech became the first writer from the USA to win the Carnegie. Despite its pacy style and humour I didn't find this one particularly memorable and one aspect of it brought to mind T H White's comment on Arthur Ransome: "He does not write with one eye on the grown-up, as I do, but seems to be a pleasantly childish man himself.'

Writing with one eye on the grown-up has been a flaw in quite a few Carnegie winners, and at times Ruby Holler seems more like a treatise on parenting than a book for children, as though the author was hoping to get through to parents who are reading the book to their kids.

Next, in 2003, we had Jennifer Donnelly's A Gathering Light, the second American winner. It's a very good read—a brilliant mix of fact and fiction (it concerns an historical murder case and includes original letters). I liked it very much but it does seem bizarre to me that this book sits in the same list of winners as Pigeon Post and The Borrowers. It was marketed as 'Young Adult' fiction and much read by adults. It's not surprising that it found a wider audience among grown-ups because it's a book which is very sure-footed in its handling of sex, and I always feel that that it's the uncertain handling of this tricky area which is one of the main distinguishing features of books categorised as YA.

Then in 2004 we have a genuine children's book, Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce. It's funny, witty, moving and a Danny Boyle movie, and I was hooked from the start because I collect school mission statements. They are often hilarious, as Frank Cottrell Boyce has noticed:

'It was our first day at Great Ditton Primary. The sign outside says, "Great Ditton Primary—Creating Excellence for a new Community".

'See that?' said Dad as he left us at the gates. 'Good isn't good enough here. Excellence, that's what they're after. My instruction for the day is, "Be excellent."'

In Millions, two boys find a bag containing squillions of pounds in banknotes earmarked for destruction as the UK switches to the Euro. They are also grieving as their mother has recently died. I love this book—who would have thought you could write something so funny about grief? And if you've tried spending cash in London lately you'll have some extra sympathy for the boys trying to get rid of the money. It's also worth noting that this book contains the first mention of the Internet among Carnegie winners. Damien gets his info about saints from www.totallysaints.com and I have a feeling the publishers put up a spoof website for that address once, but now it just takes you to an error message on the Pan Macmillan website.  The boys also use the Internet to find out about the robbery of the money.

Damien's older brother Anthony is a great character. When a bully tries to steal their Pringles at lunchtime he tells the boy their mother is dead. 'On the way to the playground, Anthony said, "Works every time. Tell them your mum's dead and they give you stuff."'

And now a fourth book, because I really want to finish these Carnegie winners in 2024.  This is Mal Peet's Tamar, the 2005 winner. Mal Peet was a wonderful writer and there's no doubt that Tamar is a terrific book, but I've always felt uneasy about it. It feels to me as if there is an excellent adult novel set in WW2 at the heart of it, which isn't improved by the addition of a modern day plot featuring a teenage girl named Tamar trying to unravel her grandfather's past. There will be spoilers in this next bit. 

The main story is set in the aftermath of the Battle of Arnhem, previously used as a setting for Aidan Chambers' 1999 winner, Postcards From No Man's Land. Two young Dutch men are parachuted into the occupied Netherlands to organise the Resistance in preparation for the next Allied advance. What follows is a tale of amphetamine-fuelled jealousy, betrayal and murder which takes place against a brilliantly realised background of the increasingly desperate and brutal German occupation.

In the present day, Tamar's grandfather kills himself (she imagines herself to be named after the river). He leaves behind a set of clues to lead her both back to her missing father, and to the truth of what happened during the war. Because it's essential to this plot that the reader doesn't know which of the two young Dutchmen survived the war and married the girl, they are only ever referred to by their false Dutch identities or by their Resistance codenames—Tamar and Dart. 

This is unfortunate because it adds a small irritation to the wartime sections and makes the reader constantly aware that there is something plotty going on. Without that irritation you would have a wartime resistance story as good as anything I've read published for adults, or better. Admittedly, the modern-day plot is well done, and I was glad that it provided some relief from the almost unbearable tension of the wartime story, but I still maintain it would have been a better book without it, albeit harder to market as YA (a category which, like all categories, Mal Peet hated.)

It's interesting that so many Carnegie winners have been set during WW2 and so few deal with the Cold War. The imaginations of those growing up in the 1950s and 60s were shaped at least as much by the threat of nuclear war as by the shadow of WW2. Mal Peet went on to fill that gap with his Life, An Exploded Diagram, published in 2011. That, for me, is his best book, although his funniest book is The Murdstone Trilogy, a wonderfully entertaining satire on the publishing industry published in 2014, not long before Mal Peet's untimely death in 2015. Please, please, do go and watch this interview on YouTube from 2015. It's great.

Originally published on ABBA January 2024