Skipper and the Headland Four is the second in the series of children’s books about a white Alsatian dog who becomes a family pet at Headland Farm. ThSkipper and the Headland Four is the second in the series of children’s books about a white Alsatian dog who becomes a family pet at Headland Farm. The books are suitable for roughly 8 to 11 year olds, and authored by the husband and wife writing team who used the pseudonym “Judith M. Berrisford”. (For more details about them, please refer to my review of the first book, “Skipper the Dog from the Sea”LINK HERE.) Skipper and the Headland Four was first published in 1957, two years after the first in the series. It is a little shorter at 15 chapters, and there is an underlying theme to the book which links all the chapters.
Kitty again is the main character, but we also read about her older brother and sister Roddy and Jane, and younger brother Pete. In the beginning Kitty has just returned to Headland Farm after spending part of the Easter holidays with Great-Aunt Margaret who lives in a smoky London suburb. She is very glad to be home!
However her pleasure is short-lived, as the children discover that the farm is struggling to survive, after a failing harvest and various other calamities. They decide to help as best they can, without letting their parents know that they have overheard the bad news. (view spoiler)[ The chapters describe how Kitty and Jane start a flower business, Roddy sets up another business catching lobsters from his fishing boat, and Roddy breeds bantams (hide spoiler)]. All these have successes and failures, the most exciting part being when (view spoiler)[ Pete mistakenly thinks that Roddy has left his boat when he should be out setting the lobster pots. In fact the “Curlew” had sprung a leak, so Roddy was getting what he needed to repair it, but in the meantime Pete decides to help by taking the boat out on his own. He ends up not being able to bail out, and floundering in the water, in danger of drowning. Skipper rescues him, and holding his shirt in his strong jaws, drags him back to the shore. In the final chapter, Skipper has earned a Blue Cross medal for bravery from the PDSA, and the farm is safe once more. (hide spoiler)]
Skipper still features in these adventures, but is not so much in the spotlight as in the first book. I was also much more aware of the gender divisions, with Jane in particular always helping Mrs Appleby with the tea and so on. It could be argued that roles are more set in farming life, but the idea of a “farmer’s wife” of this type seems a little old-fashioned; very much like Enid Blyton’s world.
Another part which made me uncomfortable was the chapter about the gipsies. Kitty had taken Dapple the mare and her foal Rusty to take part in the Agricultural Fair, in the “Best Moorland or Mountain Mare and Foal Class”. (view spoiler)[ Of course she wins, but two chapters are based on two gipsies stealing Rusty when he had broken out of the field, and claiming he was theirs. When Kitty challenged the group of gipsies in their caravans, the entire group turned nasty and said that Rusty was born there. Skipper sprang into action, and held the arm of one of the gipsies so that Kitty could rescue Rusty. (hide spoiler)]
A couple of villains in an adventure story are par for the course, and there is no reason why they should not be gipsies as much as anybody else, but when the entire community is depicted as all liars and thieves, this is unacceptable. Once again, this reminded me so much of Enid Blyton’s books, where all gipsies were depicted as untrustworthy.
It is only a couple of chapters, but leaves a bad taste, and means that I have to keep this at a default rating of three stars, despite my liking for this series. I prefer to remember the exciting chapters, such as where Skipper (view spoiler)[ finds a stray tabby cat and her kittens in a hiding place on the cliff, and how they all end up on the farm, earning their keep as mousers. Or the one where reality hits. A fox has got into the henhouse and killed most of the hens, only eating a couple. Skipper is nowhere to be found, and they eventually find him cowering behind some undergrowth. He had killed the fox, but wasn’t sure whether he would be chastised. In fact it was a relief for the farming family, who had already lost a good deal of revenue from the dead hens.
My favourite chapters were when Rusty gets spooked by a jet plane, and runs away from his mother. Dapple chases after him, and manages to divert him away from a mire, but sinks into it herself. Roddy has to get a shire horse and lasso to pull her out again. Skipper discovers the foal, who has hurt his leg in his flight, but the vet explains that it is just a sprain, and all is well. (hide spoiler)]
This is still a great, well-paced adventure series for children, with just the couple of reservations mentioned. The illustrations again are competent and lively line drawings, this time by Geoffrey Whittam. We recognise the coastal setting, with all-purpose names such as Headland farm, Home Field, Barn Field, Bird Island, Dolphin Cove, Sandy Beach and so on. Each reader has the option of placing the setting wherever they like, and after all there must be dozens of real life “Seatown”s....more
Skipper the Dog From the Sea is a children’s adventure story about four youngsters who are eager to befriend and keep a mysterious white Alsatian, andSkipper the Dog From the Sea is a children’s adventure story about four youngsters who are eager to befriend and keep a mysterious white Alsatian, and how they manage to make him a part of their family, but so often nearly lose him.
The four Appleby children live at Headland farm with their parents, and Laddie, the sheepdog. Across from the mainland is an island called “Bird island”. I suspect the fictional setting might be Northern, as my Yorkshire grandmother’s maiden name was “Appleby”. However with such functional names and lack of description it could really be any part of the coast of Great Britain, and the location is not given as we are straight into the action.
Chapter 1 is called “Kitty’s Ghost Dog”, and the illustration shows a young girl running. For several nights now she had seen a strange white Alsatian dog padding around the house and orchard in the moonlight. His coat gleamed wetly, as if he had just been swimming in the sea. Who could he be, and where had he come from?
Kitty alerts the others; her oldest sister Jane first, and then the oldest of all Roddy, who is nearly 16. She had told them about the mysterious white wolf-like dog before, and they race downstairs to see for themselves. But the dog is no longer there, so they tease Kitty, saying that she had been seeing phantom dogs again.
Early the next morning Kitty is determined to find the dog, and her younger brother Pete is enthusiastic about it too. They set off on their ponies to follow the tracks, and sure enough they stop at the sea’s edge. It is all very mysterious. However when Roddy discovers what the younger ones have been doing, he moves Laddie’s kennel to the other side of the farmhouse, so that the dog’s barking at any intruder will not wake Kitty.
This backfires, as Laddie’s barking alerts Roddy, and looking out of the window he can see for himself by the moonlight that there is indeed a white wolf-like dog, steadily licking up the leavings of the mash in the chicken trough, and as Roddy watches he sees Laddie wagging his tail in approval!
In chapter 2 we read how the four children track the dog and find that he does live on Bird Island. Perhaps he had been marooned there by his owners, their mother suggests, or perhaps he had belonged to some sailors. They row across and see that the dog uses an upturned boat as a sort of kennel to protect himself against the elements, but he is not at all pleased to see humans and faces them off aggressively. Little Pete is convinced he can make friends with the dog, however.
In chapter 3 the children persuade their parents (view spoiler)[ that the best way to get the dog to trust them is if they camp on the island, and leave food for the dog. (hide spoiler)]
This chapter is very effective as we begin to see things from the dog’s point of view, and this feels quite realistic. Chapter 4 is actually titled “What the Dog Thought”. (view spoiler)[ As time passes, the children keep going back to the island and after a few days and a couple of accidents, the dog gets to trust them enough to come nearer and take food. He even begs at one point, so they know he had once been a pet.
In chapter 6, “Pete’s Plan”, the viewpoint character switches to the youngest child, who has hatched a plan to catch the dog in the shed overnight when he comes foraging for food. But is this a good idea? We see the dog’s fear and mistrust, and read what he is feeling as he noisily tries to escape, and also his divided instincts, as he yearns to be part of a family again.
Pete is the one who makes closest friends with the dog, whom he calls Skipper. Kitty wishes it had been her really. But it is not all plain sailing even so. Each chapter describes a new adventure. Mrs. Appleby is sure that such a handsome dog must have been lost, and Mr. Appleby has advertised to find Skipper’s owner. Sure enough a man comes calling, and he has a photo with him of Skipper as a puppy; one of a litter. But Skipper is evidently happy where he is, and does not seem to remember or want to go with the man, so the man generously says he can stay in his new home.
In another thrilling adventure two lads come and say he is their dog. Skipper certainly seems to know them and is very keen to stay close. They even have a photograph of him taken nearby, which they claim was from last year. Pete especially is heartbroken when Skipper goes with the lads without a backward glance.
We know these two are up to no good, and just want to sell him on. The explanation for Skipper’s behaviour is that one lad has some aniseed in his pocket, which dogs cannot resist. But in all their patter, didn’t they call him Skipper before the children had mentioned his name? Then Roddy remembers that “Four Acre field”, where Skipper had been photographed, was all wheat the previous year, not grass. The youths must have been snooping around when Skipper was off on one of his jaunts. The children set off in hot pursuit of the van, and find it parked outside a junk-yard in the nearby village. The youths are now keen to give Skipper back, claiming they had been mistaken and that he had bitten one of them. But the skin is not broken so the children know that Skipper had merely held the youth’s arm in his jaws, as they had already discovered he had been trained to do.
Chapter 13 is called “Laddie needs the Vet”. This is a case of mistaken identity. A relief vet is called to attend to Laddie’s paw, and needs to take him back to the surgery. But nobody is within hearing range when he calls, as everyone is working (the children are sorting apples in the loft). He sees a dog and decides this must be Laddie although of course we know it is not. Skipper, for his part, has no intention of getting into another van with someone he does not know, and is stubborn and aggressive. Vets though, are experienced at handling animals and this one was well able to use a muzzle to control the dog and wrestle him into the van. He was surprised and shocked at such aggression from a farm dog, and there is a very tense emotional chapter where the vet insists to Mr. and Mrs. Appleby that such a dangerous dog must be euthanased, for the sake of the children’s safety.
Overhearing this terrible news, Kitty releases Skipper from his muzzle and captivity just in time, and he runs off. Kitty follows on her pony. Pete sees all that has gone on, and is certain he knows where Skipper would have run to, but in climbing down the rocky cliffs to the cave he thinks Skipper would be in, Pete gets stuck part way and is very scared. (hide spoiler)]
Chapter 16, the final chapter, is titled “Skipper to the Rescue!” so we know that all will be well.
There are many beautiful line drawing illustrations by Grace Lodge, which are lively and realistic. They reflect and move the story along very well.
“Judith M. Berrisford” is a portmanteau name, under which two writers wrote jointly. They are Clifford Lewis and Mary Lewis (née Berrisford). The blurb on the books is oddly coy about this, and some even show a photograph of the author, which is presumably of Mary Lewis. The information on the reverse flap says:
“Judith Berrisford is now one of the leading popular authors for children. Her very readable dog and pony books have quality and value as well as humour, appeal and excitement. She lives in Llandudno, North Wales where she and her husband - who is also a writer - can follow their outdoor interests of dog and horses, swimming, bird-watching and gardening.”
In fact the Lewises did live near the sea in North Wales, and “Judith Berrisford” is also credited with books about roses and gardening, which makes me wonder which of the couple actually wrote them. The fact that two authors collaborated for the children’s stories seems to have been kept secret, just as sometimes even now a name is used for a children’s series, when in actuality several in-house or commissioned authors write the books.
The character “Skipper” went on to feature in several children’s novels by “Judith M. Berrisford”, who also wrote another short series featuring a sheepdog called Taff in addition to one-off books about dogs and cats. These were both based on real-life pets. The authors also wrote the longest running series of UK pony books, which were were immensely popular with girls. They stretched over 26 years, although the heroine, Jackie, stayed at around 14. These books are very similar to those of the Pullein-Thompson sisters, and were very popular, continuing to be reprinted up to the end of the century. These never really interested me though as I was never into the horsey community as a child.
In addition the couple also wrote under the name “Amanda Hope”. Such a considerable output of children’s fiction perhaps owes a lot to the “comfort reading” factor. This is the sort of exciting book a child might enjoy reading over and over again. I know I did. The characters are enthusiastic and uncomplicated. We see plenty of courage, compassion, friendship and strength; children with an independent spirit and a clear moral code. The tale is fast-moving and energetic. And the reader knows full well that everything always works out in the end, whatever perils and dangers the characters have had to go through.
The recent reviews I have seen of Skipper the Dog From the Sea are all 5 stars. This first edition dates from 1955, and the latest edition I can find is from 1995. For a popular children’s novel (as opposed to a classic) to remain in print for 40 years, shows that it is evidently a cut above average, and has not dated in any significant way. There are about half a dozen books in the series, which I anticipate enjoying reading.
Skipper the Dog From the Sea is the sort of engrossing and exciting story I used to love when I was a child of about 9 to 12, and if I am honest, I still do....more
The author of this book was a champion of India’s big cats, who devoted 50 years to the conservation of tigers and leopards. He was also the first perThe author of this book was a champion of India’s big cats, who devoted 50 years to the conservation of tigers and leopards. He was also the first person who tried to reintroduce tigers and leopards into the wild from captivity.
The author of this book was a member of a princely Sikh family, related to the Maharaja of Kapurthala, and grew up among the great forests of Northern India. He killed his first leopard at the age of 12, his first tiger at 14, and was an insatiable hunter, who shot big game as a matter of course.
So which of these statements is true? The extraordinary thing is that both of them are! The author's father ran a huge estate at Balrampur, some 160 miles North of Lucknow. The family had strong British connections; Billy’s father Jasbir Singh had studied at Balliol College, Oxford, and Kunwar “Billy” Arjan Singh regularly quoted Shakespeare and Wordsworth - as well as Rudyard Kipling. Every Christmas, Billy Arjan Singh, his two brothers and other members of the family would rent a shooting block and camp in the jungle where tigers and leopards were their most prized quarry. Then, one night, having routinely shot a young leopard in the lights of his vehicle, Billy Arjan Singh suddenly felt revulsion for killing, and vowed that from then on he would protect India’s dwindling wild animals rather than hunt them. But to do this, he needed to move away from the farming country where he lived.
Accordingly Billy Arjan Singh headed off across country to the north on his elephant Baghwan Piari, and discovered the perfect spot on the bank of a river, with jungle rising in a solid wall from an escarpment on the far side. It was as far from civilisation as he could go, a full 10 hours’ drive from Delhi, and he decided to settle there. After a while he built a long, low house which he called “Tiger Haven”, and remained there for almost the whole of his life at Dudhwa, on the border of Nepal.
Billy Arjan Singh (1917 – 2010) wrote several books about his life, but Eelie and the Big Cats, first published in 1987, describes a few years from this time. It has an unusual structure, in that it is written as a letter to “Eelie”, reminiscing about her life, and describing what she had taught him. The insights he had from observing the unique relationships Eelie formed are surprising, and important for our knowledge of ethology. With every animal, Eelie formed a bond, and it is clear from the episodes described that each animal responded to the other as an individual, rather than as a member of a species.
Eelie was a most unusual dog: a mongrel who had arrived at his lodge in 1984, when she was only a few months old. She was half starved, and wriggled like an eel, hence her name. Eelie stayed, despite the author’s reluctance to have any sort of “pet”. The two became inseparable companions, and indeed Eelie was no pet but very much her own dog, the small mongrel taking it upon herself to educate the three leopards which Billy Arjan Singh reared at his home.
First came Prince, an orphaned male leopard cub, which he successfully brought up and reintroduced to the wild (now the Dudhwa National Park) in 1973. To provide Prince with a mate he subsequently raised two orphaned female leopards cubs, Harriet and Juliette, twin sisters. He never caged any of his big cats, allowing them the run of the house and its surroundings, wanting to see if their instincts would take them back to the jungle (and thus increase the dwindling big cat population). Prince did exactly that, and Billy Arjan Singh formed an exceptionally close bond with the leopard Juliette, whom he said he loved more than any human.
Harriet returned to the wild and gave birth to cubs. (view spoiler)[ However, in a moment of supreme trust, she subsequently carried them back to the house, in a desperate attempt to escape the monsoon flood. Juliette herself was poisoned by villagers, who had suspected her of man-eating. The culprit was of course a fully grown tiger (hide spoiler)]. It is clear from this that this account is not a a sentimental cosy read, but a fascinating anecdotal account for those who are interested in animal behaviour.
On each occasion Eelie had somehow dominated each of these big cats, not only as youngsters, but also when they were fully grown and several times her size, right until the urge to be fully in the wild hit each of them. On their visits back they would slot into the same relationship with Eelie, as she would with them. They lived on equal terms, and despite their strength and natural instincts, never hurt Eelie. She formed a unique bridge between the world of humans and wild creatures, which has never been seen or recorded before or since.
Her greatest challenge was perhaps Tara. Billy Arjan Singh knew of Joy Adamson and Elsa the lioness. In the late 1950s she and her husband George had reared a litter of 3 orphan cubs from a few days old. Joy Adamson was detemined to return Elsa to the wild, and they taught Elsa to hunt and released her into the Meru game reserve in Kenya. (Elsa was only to live to the age of 5, but that is another story). In July 1976, Billy Arjan Singh acquired a hand-reared female tiger cub from Twycross Zoo in England. By now his reputation as an expert on India’s big cats was established, and also his skill as a naturalist in establishing Dudhwa National Park. He wanted to attempt to reintroduce a tiger born in captivity to the wild, and was given permission to do this by India’s then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. He did so, and she returned to the jungle to produce her cubs by a wild tiger.
The book is written as a letter to Eelie, as mentioned, in nine chapters. It has several groups of photographs at various points of the book; colour snapshots taken by the author. Some show Eelie playing with one of the leopards, or the tiger, on scrubland or in the water, but my favourite one is of Harriet, (leopard) Tara (tiger) and Eelie (mongrel dog), all walking companionably in front of Billy on his daily walk around Tiger Haven.
In 1976, this erstwhile hunter turned conservationist and author was awarded the World Wildlife Fund’s gold medal, their premier award, for his conservation work. It was also largely Billy Arjan Singh who was responsible for persuading Indira Gandhi to transform Dudhwa into a 200-square-mile (520 km) national park. He established the “Tiger Haven Society” in 1992. The Society’s aims include preserving Tiger Haven and sponsoring research into wildlife. He received further wildlife awards in 2004 and 2006. Billy Arjan Singh’s writing style tended to be scientific, and editors sometimes felt this was excessive and needed elucidation for a general audience. However, within his important writings is this shorter book, which demonstrates as well as any, the unique bridge which can be formed between humans and wild creatures. It is a eloquent and moving memoir; a tribute to Eelie, whom the reading public first got to know in “Prince of Cats” (1982) and “Tiger! Tiger!” (1986).
The unloved, unwanted puppy he named Eelie, lived to be 13 years old. To Billy Arjan Singh she was simply “the ultimate dog”....more
Spaniel Surprise is a Christmas special from 2000, in the popular “Animal Ark” series. These books are suitable for children of 8 and above. The origiSpaniel Surprise is a Christmas special from 2000, in the popular “Animal Ark” series. These books are suitable for children of 8 and above. The original Animal Ark series went to 94 books, all written between 1994 and 2008. Lucy Daniels certainly seems prolific, I thought, but shhh - don’t let on to the kids - it’s a pseudonym!
In fact the books were conceived by Ben M. Baglio, who employs a team of writers to write the books. However he also wrote the book series “The Pet Finders Club” himself, using this pen name, (his own) which features a group of three children who search for people’s cute lost pets. The commissioned writers for the Animal Ark series live in Canada. In the USA apparently he is credited as the author, although this in itself acts as a pseudonym for the various authors of the books. I’m sure in England many Junior school children will quote “Lucy Daniels” as being one of their favourite authors.
The books are cosy, feel-good stories, based around a vet’s practice and a fictitious television programme, “Give A Dog A Home” which aims to find homes for dogs who have been rescued from bad circumstances. Each book features Mandy, whose parents are both veterinarians at “Animal Ark”: the name of their surgery. In each story, the aptly named Mandy Hope discovers an animal in trouble and tries to help it. She is assisted by her best friend James, and other people in the village.
In Spaniel Surprise, Lucy and James are trying to help their friend Ben, who is desperate to have a dog as a pet. He watches “Give A Dog A Home” on TV every week, and even records it so that he can watch it over and over again. There is just one problem - his mother does not want to have a dog.
Mandy is determined to help this family, and to convince Ben’s mum Mrs. Hardwick that puppies aren’t always noisy and messy. It’s just a question of Ben picking the right one to suit them. As the story proceeds, the reason for Ben’s Mum’s attitude becomes clear, and a visit to the very special dog rescue home is planned. They meet the presenters of the programme and Mandy realises that not only does a family have to choose the right dog, but the dog also has to feel happy with its new owners.
The title Spaniel Surprise reveals the necessary happy ending. (view spoiler)[ Ben may not have been chosen to be the new owner of the dog he had fallen for on TV, but the Hardwicks do happily become the owners of another lovely dog: a spaniel who also needs a new home. (hide spoiler)]
This is a novel with 10 chapters, which is suitable for readers who have just begun to read chapter books. There are also a few pencil illustrations in the book. The “Animal Ark” series of books are not graded, but there are roughly two levels, and this is one of the simpler books, for younger readers.
The only way to tell who actually wrote Spaniel Surprise is to look at the back of the title page, where each author is named with a ‘Special Thanks’. Spaniel Surprise is in fact by Narinder Dhami. To me this takes ghost writing to a whole new level, but apparently we have not yet got away from the Victorian in-house authors, so much loved by Charles Dickens. Ben M. Baglio also created the brief for another series of children’s books called “Dolphin Diaries”
These cosy books are deservedly popular, and children will see good examples of caring for others, friendship, loyalty, courage, taking responsibility, and independent creative thinking, in addition to learning about animal welfare. The earlier ones however are dated. For instance in this one, the children had to wait by one landline for a call, and since this was the vet’s practice, they were given a few coins so that they could use a payphone and free up the vet’s phone. The recording of the TV programme was also made on videotape. 2000 may not seem long ago to some adult readers, but where domestic gadgets are concerned, it is certainly a different world....more
The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit is a large format book which contains all 4 stories by Beatrix Potter, which feature Peter Rabbit.
They are “ThThe Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit is a large format book which contains all 4 stories by Beatrix Potter, which feature Peter Rabbit.
They are “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”, “The Tale of Benjamin Bunny”, “The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies”, and “The Tale of Mr Tod”.
The original watercolour illustrations from Beatrix Potter’s tiny books are used, but before her stories were ever taken on by a large publisher (Frederick Warne), the author had the Peter Rabbit stories printed privately. This large format volume also includes some of these black and white pen drawings, which is a rare treat.
We can follow the whole family history of Peter Rabbit through these 4 stories. After his adventures in Mr. McGregor’s Garden in the first ever book, Peter grows up to be a respectable vegetable gardener himself! He sometimes helps out his more feckless relations, and now and then gives the odd cabbage to his sister Flopsy (who has married his cousin Benjamin Bunny). We also learn what befalls some of their offspring.
The Flopsy Bunnies unwittingly eat too many lettuces and suffer from the soporific effects, thereby falling straight into the hands of Mr McGregor. The fourth story is twice as long as any of the three preceding ones. In it, Tommy Brock the badger tricks Mr. Tod the fox, and kidnaps another litter of flopsy bunnies, because of the carelessness of their grandfather Old Benjamin Bouncer.
We also discover that Cotton-tail has married the little black rabbit who was sweet on her in a different book. But of the 3 rabbits who were Peter’s sisters, nobody every mentions Mopsy, and we do begin to wonder about Mr McGregor’s fondness for rabbit pie …
“Brambly Hedge runs along the edge of a cornfield. There’s a hornbeam tree, four crabapple trees; a large tree stump overgrown with moss and ivy, some“Brambly Hedge runs along the edge of a cornfield. There’s a hornbeam tree, four crabapple trees; a large tree stump overgrown with moss and ivy, some elderberry bushes, a splendid oak tree, and a clump of hawthorn. Brambles and honeysuckle, foxgloves, ferns and wild roses grow alongside in a tangle of leaves and stems.”
If you, or small children you know, enjoy the Peter Rabbit stories of Beatrix Potter, Alison Uttley’s “Little Grey Rabbit” stories, or Kenneth Grahame’s unforgettable classic “The Wind in the Willows”, then you might enjoy the “Brambly Hedge” books by Jill Barklem. These too are anthropomorphic tales set in the English countryside featuring small, fully dressed woodland creatures. But Jill Barklem narrowed her focus right down, and just wrote books about mice, who live in the roots and trunks of trees and hedgerows surrounding one field, in a small area of countryside.
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Jill Barklem loved the countryside around Epping in Essex, where she grew up. After school she studied at the famous St. Martin’s School of Art in London, and for five years while she commuted on the tube train, she read about traditional English customs, flora and fauna and other related topics which would eventually be portrayed in her stories. Towards the City from Epping, the trains are horrendously overcrowded, so Jill Barklem chose to daydream, and transport herself in her imagination to an oldfashioned peaceful place, with plenty of space, and a friendly community of … mice! The tube train terminates at Epping however, so this part of the return journey is quiet, and yes, you can even get a seat!
As Gillian Gaze, she had written a handful of picture books for Lion publishing and later contributed illustrations for children’s Bibles. She was not satisfied with her work on these however and wanted to draw from nature. Jill Barklem illustrated the “Haffertee Hamster” books by Janet and John Perkins, and continued to be inspired by her observations of nature and the countryside. In 1977 she married David Barklem, an antiques dealer. Her new husband then urged her to use her knowledge and skills as preparation for a series of books, and “Brambly Hedge” was born.
The first four stories were “Spring Story”, “Summer Story”, “Autumn Story”, and “Winter Story”. All were initially published in 1980, in a miniature format and style similar to the books of Beatrix Potter. Since then there have been many new editions and reprints, in various sizes.
“Brambly Hedge is on the other side of the stream, across the field. If you can find it, and if you look very hard among the tangled roots and stems, you may even see a wisp of smoke from a small chimney, or through an open door, a steep flight of stairs deep within the trunk of a tree. For this is the home of the mice of Brambly Hedge.”
“Brambly Hedge” is a charming little world on a small scale. There are Mr. and Mrs. Toadflax and their children, but also their friends and family, who all live in the roots and trunks of trees and hedgerows. Jill Barklem went on to write 6 more “Brambly Hedge” books, the final one being in 2010. She made sure that every recipe for the tasty food enjoyed by the mice at picnics and feasts could actually be made from foraged ingredients. And even the strange contraptions and mechanical implements she created within Brambly Hedge were given the same treatment. She made miniature working models of all the machinery in the mouse mill and dairy.
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"Happy Mouse Mansion"
These books are now almost as popular with adults as with children, mostly for the beautifully busy and detailed artwork and the complete world in miniature that Jill Barklem has created. They have been translated into 13 languages and have sold more than 7 million copies.
As with “Peter Rabbit”, and all the furry and feathered folk of Beatrix Potter, the drawings lend themselves to merchandising. When the first 4 books in the Brambly Hedge series were first published, one large bookstore had a display depicting a kitchen scene from “Winter Story”. The set was 18ft x 6ft and had taken the design team from Collins’ publishing three months to create. The prestigious “Royal Doulton” china features her designs, there are posters, colouring and sticker books, collectables from “Border Fine Arts”, and even Brambly Hedge chocolates! All the titles have been adapted for television; “Winter Story” was first broadcast in the UK on Christmas Day in 1996 and in the US in 1997.
The Brambly Hedge Treasury is an oversize book, so the illustrations are particularly eyecatching. It has an introduction which consists of extra illustrations and text. One complicated watercolour has a numbered diagram of all 10 characters or families in the series alongside, which are shown in the large pictures. You do have to look quite closely though! The publishers say that this series is suitable for ages 3 - 6, but they were very popular in the school which the author’s children, Lizzie and Peter attended, (and where I was the deputy head teacher for a time) and that was for children between 7 and 11 years of age! This was due in a large part to the illustrations, which are like little puzzles, and authentic in their detail. The next double page spread is another numbered watercolour of the field and its environs, again with a key.
The hornbeam tree is where the Toadflax family live, and there are other locations such as Crabapple cottage, Elderberry lodge, Old Oak Palace (where Lord and Lady Woodmouse and their daughter Primrose live), Hawthorn Rise, home of old Mrs. Eyebright, the Dairy Stump, Old Vole’s Hole and so on.
Then there is a section about the history of the families who live in Brambly Hedge, followed by two full length stories (both of which had been previously published separately) “The Secret Staircase” (1983) and “The High Hills” (1986).
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"Crabapple Cottage, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Apple"
It is a visually stunning book, with the Autumnal hues of many beautiful, closely focused and detailed drawings. Jill Barklem’s illustrations top both Beatrix Potter’s and Ernest H. Shepard’s (the original illustrator of “The Wind in the Willows”) in my view. However, I do not find the stories match the quality, and are strangely unmemorable. They are nowhere as engaging as their classic predecessors’ tales.
However I was saddened to hear that this local author had died at the early age of 66. She has left a lasting legacy in the world she created, and the botanically correct and painterly Artwork is loved by millions around the world. These designs well deserve to be lifted from my default, hence I will rate this book at 4 stars....more
I am out of step with the general opinion on this one. Most of my friends and many of the critics loved this first novel by Shelby Van Pelt. For me ReI am out of step with the general opinion on this one. Most of my friends and many of the critics loved this first novel by Shelby Van Pelt. For me Remarkably Bright Creatures was a two star read, although please remember that on Goodreads, unlike Amazon, 2 stars indicates “it was OK”. That’s what I felt. It wasn’t an impossibly bad book, and perhaps I would enjoy the next one by this author.
I had hoped to enjoy this more, and was intrigued at the start to learn that the narrator was an octopus. That boded well; I immediately engaged with “Marcellus McSquiddles”, a giant Pacific octopus, who had been named by a small child. Marcellus thinks and feel as humans do, exhibits an enormous capacity for empathising with humans and what they need, has a secret hoard of treasures, can pick locks, squeeze out of his tank at the aquarium to go on late-night snack runs (secretly picking off his fellow tank-dwellers) and is superior to humans in that he can (view spoiler)[ recognise fingerprints, and family connections by clues in the person’s appearance and demeanour, thereby enabling him to pair up long-lost relatives. (hide spoiler)] Yes, I was rooting for Marcellus from the start. So would you be, as he titles his entries “Day xxx of my captivity”, talks of being “imprisoned” and waiting out his “sentence”. Both he and we know from the beginning that he only has about 160 days left to live. Immediately, we wonder whether this octopus will ever get the chance to be free before he dies.
But the action quickly moves on from Marcellus, and takes a sharp downward turn. In fact his passages stay brief to the point of being minimal. His sole function is to serve as a plot point for the characters. I tried, I really did, to be interested in the lives of the inhabitants of Sowell Bay (an imaginary coastal town on Puget Sound) but they were just so boring. They were trapped in their own small-town world, but unlike Marcellus, they had choices. Their lives were either drifting, or they had made conscious decisions to immerse themselves in a domestic mess.
As in real life, the humans here view keeping sentient beings in tanks or cages to gaze at as their inalienable right, however intelligent the creatures are, or however much distress it causes them. Ah, I can see you sitting up; perhaps that is the message of the book? But sorry, no it isn’t. At the end of the book there is a nice lightbulb moment as we realise (view spoiler)[that the “remarkably bright creatures” of the title is in fact how Marcellus thinks of the humans, rather than as we assumed, how humans think of octopuses. That explains why it is in the plural, because only at the end is there another octopus; a new replacement for Marcellus. (hide spoiler)]
But the theme of the book is the loneliness of Marcellus, and how he enables others to break out a little from their self-imposed prisons before (view spoiler)[ finally being rescued in a bucket of water and released into the sea, for the final moment of his life (hide spoiler)]. Great. Is this what makes people cry? After I had read it, I learned that it was promoted as “the heart-warming summer read of 2022” and “an instant bestseller”. Actually that might well have put me off, curmudgeon that I am. But at least it means that I don’t have to feel guilty for giving this book a less than average rating, despite it being a first-time attempt. I’d hate to deter any author, but Shelby Van Pelt has no need of my praise.
She says in her afterword that the book came about as a response to a writing workshop’s project to “write a novel from an unusual viewpoint”, and that is exactly what it feels like. A writing exercise, not very well written, and quite unbalanced in structure, despite all the help she honestly credits. There are far more acknowledgements of various types of editors and helpful friends than usual. It confirms that this is an artificially constructed novel, and explains the unbalanced feel. Now I see why near the end, Cameron pointlessly (view spoiler)[ identifies a different floorboard and finds Erik, her drowned son’s secret hiding place, although in fact it contains nothing of much significance. (hide spoiler)] It was the right point in the book for such a secret revelation, certainly, but in fact it added nothing to the story and was completely irrelevant.
There’s also a lot of clunky homespun philosophy in this last section too, with the main character musing on how changing lanes in traffic is like the choices in life one has to make. Really? If you were driving in tricky or unknown road conditions, is this what would occupy your mind? A more experienced author would use an omniscient viewpoint to convey this thought, or even better, use skilful writing techniques to imply a metaphor, so that the reader picks the idea up without really knowing why. It feels as if this author has been told “bung in a few metaphors, to give a satisfying ending”.
Yet this was the most interesting character: Tova Sullivan, a second-generation Swede. Now 70 years old, and a lonely widow, Tova passes her days in cleaning the town’s aquarium, despite having no need of the money. Tova and Marcellus have an especially close relationship, with Tova confiding her daily thoughts to the intuitive cephalopod.
Oddly, enough, this is the second book I have read in the last few weeks where the protagonist is a 70 year old woman, and in neither case did I know this beforehand. Even more strange is the fact that I could understand the English translation of the earlier book (which was originally written in Polish) far more easily than I could understand the original American English of Remarkably Bright Creatures! I lost count of how many times I had to resort to the dictionary, to decipher the plethora of words from American culture. Remarkably Bright Creatures allows no concessions to an international audience.
In fact this novel suffers heavily by comparison. Both have a mystery element but Remarkably Bright Creatures’s resolution is telegraphed so early that it is almost inevitable that you will guess it well before the final reveal, about three quarters through. None of the characters here are developed, and some are particularly one dimensional. Examples are the Knit-Wits, three longtime female friends whom Tova lunches and gossips with for some reason, even though she doesn’t like them very much. (Their wittering would make me run a mile, too.) Tova stays busy and cleans obsessively, which seems to be her recipe for contentment. It makes her feel calmer, and has done for the last 30 years, ever since (view spoiler)[her 18 year old son, Erik - her golden boy - had been found at the bottom of a lake, and whose death she believes was incorrectly ruled a suicide. Tova is eventually vindicated in this belief. (hide spoiler)]
The only other female character we see much of is Avery, a surf-shop owner. She is viewed entirely through Cameron’s lens, so is presented as the requisitely attractive beddable young woman - with useful business acumen (from his point of view). Some descriptions of Avery’s physical attributes made me wince, being straight out of a trashy romance novel. Cameron is the third main character, after Tova and Marcellus. Cameron at 30, is a bit of a no-hoper; a slob with a chip on his shoulder, who whinges his way yobbily through the book, despite his encyclopaedic brain, whose thoughts we are occasionally privy to. He has just cause, he believes, since his mother, a heroin addict, had left him with his aunt Jeanne in a California trailer park when he was 9 years old, and never returned. (view spoiler)[After too many failed relationships and lost jobs, he “borrows” all his aunt’s savings - which she is keen to let him have - buys a clapped out camper van and and heads up North from Sowell Bay on a whim, after deciding on very little evidence that a millionare tycoon is his long-lost father. His main aim in this is not to form any close relationship, but to demand years of back payment which he reckons he is owed, as child support. (hide spoiler)] What a charmer. Yet nearly everyone gives Cameron every chance, and sometimes even go out on a limb for him. Cameron behaves more like a spoilt teenager than an adult male.
A secondary character is Ethan, the Shop-Way grocery store owner who has been sweet on Tova for ages. This aging rocker almost has a story line, but as with all the other episodes, it is inconsequential.
Tova realises she is getting old, so decides (view spoiler)[to get rid of all her considerable belongings, and despite everyone’s objections, sell the luxury house her father had built, so that she can spend the rest of her days in the same swish nursing home where her estranged brother has just died: (hide spoiler)]
“I am not like you and Mary Ann and Barbara. I don’t have children who will come stay with me when I’ve had a fall. I don’t have grandchildren who will stop over to unclog my drain or make sure I’m taking my pills. And I won’t put that burden on my friends and neighbours.”
Tova is a self-sufficient, stoic Swede. Shelby Van Pelt tells us in her afterword that Tova is based very loosely on her Grandma Anna. It’s a shame that nearly every episode Tova is in, is marred by the constant drumming dirge of domestic detail, and her mind-numbingly boring life. As are all the episodes with Aunt Jeanne, the only difference being that one is a “clean and orderly” obsessive, who lives in a mansion, and the other the complete opposite, living in a mobile home where piles of clutter drown every surface and cascade down at the slightest touch. I’m not sure what great truth we are intended to derive from this contrast, but it is really hammered home.
In fact, apart from the obvious theme of loneliness and limited expectations, I’m not sure what the point of this book is. It has a sort of story, although as I said, the mystery is weak. It has excruciatingly bad cod philosophy, such as this from Marcellus:
“As a general rule, I like holes. A hole at the top of my tank gives me freedom. But I do not like the hole in her heart. She only has one, not three, like me. Tova’s heart. I will do everything I can to help her fill it.”
All together now, … aaaah! You like a bit of corny sentiment? Well perhaps you will enjoy this one, then. I too like light novels sometimes, and don’t often enjoy modern literary novels. Remarkably Bright Creatures though, sent me to sleep waiting for the homeopathic doses of Marcellus. Going back to my comparison with the Polish novel with a 70 year old protagonist, I only gave that 4 stars, although I suspect it deserves a full 5. But I struggled to decipher it sometimes, when she quoted esoteric poetry. Nevertheless it had wit, humour, intrigue, great characters and an unpredicable ending. This one has none of those. Marcellus deserved better in every sense.
Heartwarming? No, facile and boring, with an ending which, far from providing a tear-jerking resolution, merely serves to emphasise for me the deep wrong at its centre. (view spoiler)[ There is even a replacement for Marcellus all ready and waiting, in a tank alongside (hide spoiler)], just to prove that everything is just hunkydory.
Not for me it isn’t.
It’s a cheat and merely makes me angry. It reminds me very much of "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". The scapegoat.
Nevertheless, it isn’t a complete failure as a book, and the story hangs together reasonably well, so 2 stars it is. Will I read another book by this author? Perhaps. In April 2023 Shelby Van Pelt said that she was currently working on a second book, utilising the same universe she created in Remarkably Bright Creatures. She is hoping to not create a sequel, (thank goodness for that! That poor little baby octopus …) but to “feed into her ideas for the side characters in her debut novel that had to be scrapped.”
Nearly everybody here must have heard of Black Beauty in some form or other, even if they have never read it. Dramatisations of this 1877 novel aboundNearly everybody here must have heard of Black Beauty in some form or other, even if they have never read it. Dramatisations of this 1877 novel abound, and most know about the famous horse “Black Beauty”, even if the details of her life, and the fate of Ginger, and Merrylegs are a bit vague.
We begin before Black Beauty is named, with her happy and carefree days as a filly on an English farm. Her mother, Duchess, tries to instil good morals and standards of behaviour in the young horse. Black Beauty is sold on to many different owners in her life, and always does her best. Along the way, she has both kind and cruel owners, including a difficult time pulling cabs in London. She tells many tales both of her hardships, and where she was happy with kind owners.
Because of the episodic nature of the book, the story lends itself to dramatising in a weekly serial on children’s television, and this has been done several times. Each short chapter in the book recounts an incident in Black Beauty’s life, but as was common for Victorian “improving” novels, each additionally contains a moral precept, teaching about how to treat horses with kindness, sympathy, and understanding. The behaviour of both horses and humans is well observed and accurate. For instance the descriptions of the different jobs Black Beauty is expected to do, such a carrying heavy loads, or being driven too far, too fast, has a lot of authentic detail of the time. Thus readers gain insight into how horses suffered in Victorian Britain, through their treatment and “use” by human beings. Fortunately Black Beauty ends her life happily, (view spoiler)[ retired in the country, back serendipitously with some of her earliest owners (hide spoiler)], who recognised her by the white star on her forehead.
It is clear that Anna Sewell, who wrote Black Beauty, had a special affinity with horses. She had grown up in a seaside town in Norfolk, and at the age of 14 had a bad fall while walking home from school in the rain, injuring both her ankles. Sadly, because the injury was not treated correctly, Anna Sewell became unable to walk or stand very well as a result. The effects were so severe that she was disabled for the rest of her life.
After the accident Anna Sewell began learning about horses, and spent many hours driving her father to and from the station for his commute to work. Because Anna Sewell herself was dependent on horse-drawn vehicles to get around, she developed a deep respect for horses.
Black Beauty was Anna Sewell’s only novel, and has never been out of print since. It was written as she said, with “a special aim … to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses”, and it has had a lot of influence on how they are treated, which she would have been pleased to see. The book was read worldwide, and her portrayal of the plight of working animals led to a sympathetic concern for improvements in animal welfare. For instance checkreins feature early on in the novel, and it is made clear that they are particularly painful for a horse, and damage a horse’s neck. After the book’s publication, they fell out of favour in Victorian England where they had formerly been fashionable.
Sadly though Anna Sewell was never to know about the long-term positive effects of her novel on the treatment and care of horses. Although she had visited many spas throughout Europe, her health was declining. Black Beauty took her over 6 years to write, as she steadily got weaker. She had to dictate the latter parts to her mother. Anna Sewell then died at 57, 5 months after Black Beauty had been published. Anna Sewell sold the copyright of Black Beauty for £20 (£2000 today). Significantly, although she said it was a book for adults, she sold it to Jarrold publishers. Nowadays Jarrold publish a lot of colourful guides and booklets aimed at tourists, but at the time they specialised in books for children. Perhaps this is one reason why children have traditionally been such a large and loyal proportion of its readership.
The novel remains a classic, and has been quoted as the sixth best seller in the English language, not just in the author’s home country. Two years after the release of the novel, one million copies of Black Beauty were in circulation in the United States, and now it has sold over 50 million copies worldwide in 50 different languages.
Intriguingly for the time, the viewpoint character is a horse. As far as I can tell, this is the first time in English literature where a horse has narrated their own autobiography. Anna Sewell drolly says that Black Beauty is “translated from the original equine”. However just 9 years later in 1886, Leo Tolstoy was to write what he called “a romance of a horse”, called “Strider: The Story of a Horse”. This too was a poignantly profound tale, told from the viewpoint of an old horse. Strider comments on such perennially human concerns as prejudice, fortune, and morality. There are definite similarities between the two books.
But even before Black Beauty - in fact over a century earlier, in 1726 - there were the “Houyhnhnms” in Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World”. The Houyhnhnms are rational equine beings and are masters of the land, contrasting strongly with the Yahoos, savage humanoid creatures who are no better than beasts of burden, or livestock. We can see clear parallels here with the intelligence and sensitivity of Black Beauty, as opposed to the cruelty and stupidity of some of the humans she meets and is “owned” by.
In Black Beauty we see the horses’ terrible suffering to enable human vanity. Ginger describes the physical effects of the “bearing rein” to Black Beauty: “it is dreadful … your neck aching until you don’t know how to bear it … it hurt my tongue and my jaw and the blood from my tongue covered the froth that kept flying from my lips”.
Other common practices to do with human’s preferences for how animals should look are described, and not only restricted to horses:
“Now look, for instance, at the way they serve dogs, cutting off their tails to make them look plucky, and shearing up their pretty little ears to a point to make them look sharp … They healed in time, and they forgot the pain, but the nice soft flap, that of course was intended to protect the delicate part of their ears from dust and injury, was gone forever.”
Docking tails, or any non-human surgery for appearance, is happily now illegal in the UK.
One owner is described as believing that “when [a horse] was past work he should be shot and buried.” This practice does still happen with some working animals, for instance illicitly for sheepdogs on sheep farms, or greyhounds which are deemed unfit to race. Perhaps this is not “cruel” as such. But there are charities devoted to rescuing and rehoming such animals nowadays, and many now have more compassionate homes in their old age.
Black Beauty says of another, kinder owner that: “he thought people did not value their animals half enough, nor make friends of them as they ought to do”. This anthropomorphising element stresses the commonality between all living creatures. Horses have emotions, and react just as humans do; they exhibit characteristics such as love and loyalty. However, by telling the story of a horse’s life in the form of an autobiography, and describing the world through the eyes of the horse, we additionally see the horse’s special attributes, in common with other nonhuman species:
“Still, there was an anxious look about her eye, by which I knew that she had some trouble.”
This is not actually anthropomorphising because other animals can do it better than us! We use spoken language instead, and our other ways of communication are thus not very well developed (or humans have lost them over time). For instance, how exactly does your dog know when you are upset, when for people there are no outward signs? Or how do assistance dogs know when an epileptic fit is about to occur, when even the person themselves do not? Dogs have a special gland (the vomeronasal organ) which helps them to identify thousands of different smells, and even isolate a “cancer” smell, as scientific tests have demonstrated. Pets (including horses) adapt to us, and learn our language, far more than we bother learning their signals. They have different ways of interpreting from us, and key into some aspects we are unaware of. This comes through strongly in Black Beauty.
As mentioned, Anna Sewell stated that the novel was intended to be for adults; to inform a wide audience about the all too common cruelty to horses and to encourage prevention of such treatment. However, what seems quite odd is that Black Beauty is now universally seen as a children’s book, and read by thousands of children worldwide. Possibly this is because it is narrated by the main character, Black Beauty.
I have used the female pronoun for Black Beauty. Although the novel does not specify a gender, it is evident that Black Beauty’s behaviour is not that of a stallion; who would be constantly aggressive and distracted by mares. Neither is there any mention of castration, as in Leo Tolstoy’s book. The obvious interpretation therefore is that Black Beauty is a young filly, and later a mare, but the convention in popular literature (and films) about anthropormophised animals is to assume that they are male, even when the acting animals themselves are female! Nevertheless you may prefer to draw a veil over the details, and think of Black Beauty as a gelding.
There is another aspect which Black Beauty shares with “Gulliver’s Travels: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World”. This too is often presented as a children’s book, although it fact it is a heavily satirical work - as is most of Jonathan Swift’s writing. Bearing this in mind, we see a possible subtext to Black Beauty.
As a young filly, Black Beauty’s mother tells her:
“I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play.”
Plus we have statements like these:
“do your best wherever it is, and keep up your good name.”
“we are only horses, and don’t know.”
It is drummed into Black Beauty that her duty is to serve humans. That is what she has been taught, and she knows her “station” in life. However, if we think of these things as being said by people rather than horses, and apply it to Victorian society, it takes on another aspect.
Here’s another:
“We horses do not mind hard work as long as we are treated reasonably.”
Now it becomes even clearer. Black Beauty can be read as a sort of moral tract, designed to keep servants in their place. Whether or not Anna Sewell was aware of this aspect herself, or whether it was unconscious, we can see why the book was so popular “below stairs” helping servants to accept the status quo of middle-class Victorian families. The message of Black Beauty is for them to accept their lot - and to be grateful for it! There were a lot of such improving moral tales, encouraging those of the lower orders to reconcile themselves to their position.
Furthermore, there are obvious appeals against slavery. In chapter 5, Anna Sewell alludes directly to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, which was published in 1852, 25 years earlier. Just as Harriet Beecher Stowe gives a long polemic condemning the breaking up of negro families in that book, so does Anna Sewell show through Black Beauty’s keen perception, the pain felt by those who are separated from their kin.
So … is Black Beauty just a kiddies’ book? I think not! But perhaps I’ll finish on a whimsical note, as this book does have quite a bit of gentle humour:
“This was a little joke of John’s; he used to say that a regular course of “the Birtwick horseballs” would cure almost any vicious horse; these balls, he said, were made up of patience and gentleness, firmness and petting, one pound of each to be mixed up with half a pint of common sense, and given to the horse every day.”
Humans will always have relationships with horses, but horses are prey animals and therefore easily dominated. I admire Anna Sewell for raising their profile with this book, by whatever means, in order to improve the lives of horses....more
Bionic Jean
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