Marianne Dreams

[Beachtastic]

Did anyone else love this book as a child?

For some reason I've been thinking about it the past couple of days and will read it again (paperback on order!).

Such a clever and interesting plot. Not to mention scary!

annabookbel.net/revisiting-childrens-classic-1958-marianne-dreams-catherine-storr/

The Green Knowe books are still in print (or were a couple of years ago) - I've bought them for people recently. There was a tv series in the ?80s and a film very loosly based on the books with horrible plot/character changes in the ten minutes I managed before switching off.

Oh, I see you're right... I was just rather hoping there might be a whole collection available, as with Anne of Green Gables. Not yet, but maybe one day...🤞🏻

So annoying when films/TV series switch things around pointlessly!

What a lovely thread! I also loved Marianne Dreams - I remember really regretting that she couldn't manage her lovely birthday roast chicken, particularly, as well as 'noooot the liiiiight' - terrifying. Marianne and Mark is indeed a bit of a let-down, and quite sad to find the teenage Marianne is a loner in a very muted world. Seem to recall some quite snobbish stuff about a girl she meets from a (whisper it!) secondary modern school...

But Polly and the Wolf was an unmitigated delight. Would any children's book now use words like 'nonchalantly' or contain the sheer and obvious delight in language and phrasing that Storr clearly had?

@Beachtastic popping in to say you can buy the Green Knowe books here - https://www.greenknowe.co.uk/product-category/green-knowe/

I love them and Hemingford Grey is well worth a visit too. It is just like stepping into the books.

Fans of Alan Garner in the north west of England should visit his house. It is quite, quite remarkable. www.theblackdentrust.org.uk/visit-us/guided-tours/

I see what you mean!

https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/garners-old-medicine-house

Alan describes the tragedies and triumphs of former owners and visitors to both the houses: Mrs Carter, who lived in Toad Hall all her life and cared for her disabled brother, left the furniture on the condition that it would remain in the house. Edward Pope, a schoolmaster who had survived a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, made the first modern improvement to the house, piping water from the well into the house and installing a semi-rotary hand pump in the kitchen. For the first time in her life, Mrs Carter had running water. And then there was ‘the Rat Man’, who visited the Old Medicine House to lay traps, moving from room to room with a growing sense of disquiet. Rounding a corner, he turned whey-white: he’d found his initials carved into a beam, despite never having visited the area. He’d played in the house as a child when it was located 18 miles away. Later in his life, returning from Dunkirk on a train of wounded soldiers bound for an unknown destination, he wiped his sleeve over the misted glass. Framed in the small circle was the house, and he knew he was almost home.

Edited to add: I didn't know he had a book published recently, Treacle Walker, which looks intriguing (very mixed reviews on Amazon, but the first says "It’s about a boy living alone, recovering from an illness, whose eyes each see the scene in front of him differently"... which ties in nicely, in a way, with Marianne Dreams!

@Beachtastic Although I’m generally a Garner fan I wasn’t that keen on Treacle Walker. Although there are some great pieces of writing in it I felt that overall it didn’t work . You have to be pretty familiar with his use of myth in earlier books to work out what’s going on and the fact that the central character, who seems to be about 11 or 12, leads a completely solitary existence bothered me. I do feel with AG that he’s more interested in place and myth than in people. It’s a very short book though and certainly worth reading if you’re interested in his work.

The Amazon reviews, unlike his other books, are fairly evenly distributed between those who think it's intriguing and those who think it's rubbish! Still, at £2.99 on Kindle I've taken a punt... cheaper than a coffee in Pret (not that I drink coffee)!

I have just discovered the audiobook of Clever Polly on YouTube, and even better......it's read by Derek Griffiths! OMG I'm 6 years old again and entranced....

And @Beachtastic no, I had no idea how to pronounce 'chihuahua' either, so you weren't alone.

I think most of the books I loved as a young teenager have been mentioned already, but here’s a few more (apologies if I’ve missed people mentioning them already):

which witch? by Eva Ibbotson, it’s a really sweet story and I still love it

Would thoroughly recommend The Changeover by Margaret Mahy, it is beautifully written and I really enjoyed re-reading it recently.

The Peacock Spring and The Greengage Summer, by Rumer Godden

The Cats of Seroster, by Robert Westall, I haven’t reread that recently but do remember liking it a lot at the time.

One more river by Lynne Reid Banks - it’s not on kindle and I think is out of print, so I’ve not managed to reread that, but I reeeally want to!

I read Honor Arundel's Emma books - and still have my copies. I also have a YA novel by her set in a hospital ward, possibly based on her real experiences. Sadly she died aged 54 (I think of cancer). And I think I still have all my Nina Beachcroft books as well. Though it's a long time since I read any of them, and they're on a high shelf behind huge piles of other books.

I've been looking up Nina Beachcroft - and found a post from a book blogger at the end of 2023 who had read her books - published in the 1970s and 1980s, and ended up talking to her on the phone, who was very pleased to speak to someone still reading her books, though they're long out of print.

@elkiedee I love Rumer Godden’s doll stories too, especially The Dolls’ House (later published as Tottie, the Story of a Dolls’ House). She described the dolls’ house and its furnishings in such careful and accurate detail I’m sure she was thinking of a real one. I know she did have an antique dolls’ house because in her autobiography she wrote that she sold a coat she hated because it was real fur, to raise the money to buy the dolls’ house.

I think it was probably the first novel I read with a murder! I remember being horrified at the outcome of Marchpane’ campaign against the Plantagenets. Oliver Postgate (of Bagpuss fame) did a charming stop-motion animation series based on it that can be found on DVD.

@Beachtastic So the Cannibal King was based on a real person! What a find of yours. I would never have guessed. My favourite Astrid Lindgrens are much less well known than Pippi Longstocking and it is a great shame because that they are so obscure. They are Mardie’s Adventures and the sequel, Mardie to the Rescue, about two little girls living in Sweden around the time of the Second World War. They’re not in the least fantastical, but they are very funny, and I suspect they may have been inspired by Astrid Lindgren’s own childhood.

I first came across them in some Astrid Lindgren story tapes being sold off for next to nothing in Ikea years ago. DD loved them so much I spent about a year tracking down the books for her. The line “Mardie, are you dead?” uttered in a slightly alarmed, slightly peevish tone, has become a family catchphrase whenever there’s a mysterious crash in the house.

@CatherinetheAverage Cold Christmas is my favourite Nina Beachcroft too. It is very atmospheric, and very original - she is another writer who should be better known. I borrowed them from the library as a child and then hunted down secondhand copies for DD, who loved them too. Libraries used to have such amazing collections of wonderful books. I was very lucky to have been a child in what I now think was their golden age.

@TonstantWeader I agree A Dog So Small ought to be better known too. It is different in feel to Tom’s Midnight Garden, but I suppose, thinking about it, they are both about yearning for something so strongly that it becomes real. They both live in the reader’s memory anyway.

Have you read the sequel to One More River? It's called Broken Bridge and is about Lesley's daughter.

@Latenightreaderno, I hadn’t heard of that one. Thank you, I shall keep a look out for it.

Wanting to add here The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. Some of the characters and names have stayed with me through my adult life.

I see from the Amazon reviews that many people have treasured this book and re-read it later in life with even greater appreciation.

My Kindle is now bulging with downloads!

@CatChant Who knew that IKEA promoted literature along with flat-pack furniture! what a treat!

You're right, the books are very hard to find - well done for a successful treasure hunt.

One reviewer on GoodReads has quoted a passage from Mardie's Adventures, saying it works better in German, but it sounds pretty fabulous in English:

[Reviewer's intro]
The book consists of a series of loosely connected short stories, spanning a year of Madicken's life, and they are utterly charming. I have trouble saying which bit I liked most, they're all perfect, but maybe the beginning of the winter story. It's the first day when the river has frozen over properly. Madicken and Lisabeth have rushed out of bed as soon as they were alerted to the amazing news, and they've put on their warm clothes and their skates as fast as ever they could. They've promised to be back in time for breakfast. But now they're out on the ice, and Astrid Lindgren does such a good job of describing how wonderful it is to be seven and out skating with your little sister on new ice that's completely shiny and clean because no one else has discovered it yet. They skate and skate and skate.

[Quotes from book with commentary]
"We could skate all the way to the farm," suggests Madicken.

"Are we allowed to do that?" asks Lisabeth.

"We wouldn't be allowed to go down the road," says Madicken. "It's too far. But it's much quicker skating, so that's okay."

Lisabeth accepts this extremely dubious argument and they skate off. It turns out that the farm's rather a long way by river too. They go round bend after bend, but it just won't turn up like it's supposed to. Suddenly the girls realize that they're half an hour from home and they're very hungry and they'd promised to be back for breakfast.

"We must be nearly there," says Madicken. "We can't turn round now. I know what. We'll ask if we can buy some eggs."

"But how will we eat them?" asks Lisabeth.

"We can ask them boil them for us," says Madicken.

"But do we have any money?" asks Lisabeth.

"I have two öre in my pocket," says Madicken.

"Is that enough to buy two eggs?" asks Lisabeth.

"Well," says Madicken. "We'll ask how many eggs we can buy for two öre. It'll work out."

So she looks in her pocket, but she can't find the two öre. It's just gone.

"It doesn't matter," she says. "Two öre more or less doesn't make any difference. I bet they'll invite us to stay for breakfast."

Lisabeth isn't so sure about all this, and the farm still hasn't turned up, and she's hungry and cold. She starts crying, but then they go round the next bend and there it is. They take off their skates and knock on the door. The family is already sitting down and eating breakfast.

"Can we buy some eggs?" asks Lisabeth, who's forgotten all the changes of plan. Madicken grits her teeth. Her stupid little sister has just ruined everything!

"How many did your mother tell you to buy?" asks kind Mrs. Karlsson.

"I'm afraid we don't have any money," says Madicken.

"But we're very hungry," says Lisabeth.

"I understand that you are," says Farmer Karlsson, but he doesn't really seem to understand very well, since he just goes back to eating his breakfast without saying anything else. Luckily his wife understand better.

"Would you girls like some porridge?" she asks.

"Oh yes please!" say Madicken and Lisabeth at the same time. They take off their coats and sit down. A moment later they have two steaming bowls of porridge in front of them.

"Porridge is my absolute favorite!" says Madicken politely.

"And is it your favorite too?" Mrs. Karlsson asks Lisabeth.

"No," says Lisabeth, who is very truthful but doesn't like to waste words when she's eating.

"And what is your favorite?" asks Mrs. Karlsson.

"Chocolate pudding and pudding and other puddings," says Lisabeth. Madicken sighs.

"Chocolate pudding means chocolate pudding and pudding means vanilla pudding and other puddings means other puddings," she explains. No one understands what Lisabeth says except her.

For some reason, Mr. Karlsson seems to be sort of laughing without really laughing. Madicken has noticed that people at the farm often do that.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/730495

@StartupRepair The Little White Horse apparently has never been out of print, which is pretty good for a book written in 1946. JK Rowling said it was her childhood favourite some years ago (prompting a sudden rash of very fancy editions in the bookshops) so you are in good company. Linnets and Valerians, Smokey House and Henrietta’s House, all also by Elizabeth Goudge are enchanting too.

@Beachtastic Yes, as you can see, the Mardie books are a delight from start to finish, and can be appreciated by adults every bit as much as children, perhaps even more. Pippi Longstocking is so famous it seems absurd these other wonderful books by Astrid Lindgren are out of print.

If only one could just order any title and have a copy printed on demand…I suppose I would end up sleeping in the garden shed for lack of space!

Did anyone else read the Carbonel books?

No, but I LOVE the cover!

My parents had to confiscate Gobbolino the Witch's Cat because I always cried floods of tears over it. Carbonel looks a bit more upbeat!

It's a trilogy, and I would highly recommend for anyone who thinks talking cats would be a good addition to their life!

Loved Gobbolino! Carbonel is indeed a bit more upbeat.

Yes I adored the Carbonel books!

I tried to read them to my DD during Covid, but she was really puzzled by them. Unfortunately, I think some of that 1960s world of rented rooms and social hierarchies still was recognisable when I was young, but doesn’t quite make sense to children today, sadly. I love Carbonel the character, though!

DD actually really liked them but her reading aged 6+ was almost entirely composed of ancient children's books that I had liked because she had anxiety, and it turned out that older children's books were way less alarming than modern ones. Which sounds strange given that we got into this starting with Marianne Dreams but somehow it did work!

Rosemary under the hedge with the rhubarb and the plate of sugar remains one of my favourite images in a book of all time. Somehow it has got into my brain despite never having eaten a stick of raw rhubarb with a plate of sugar.

I loved both Carbonel and Gobbolino, but Carbonel was a great deal less harrowing. Poor little Gobbolino, always being turned out of doors when people discovered he was a witch’s kitten.

For years after reading the Carbonel trilogy whenever I saw the traditional carboys of green and red liquid in pharmacy windows I would remember they were the source of the potion that enabled Rosemary and John to understand the language of animals. I really did want some.

While we are on witches and cats, does anyone else remember Mary Stewart’s The Little Broomstick?