Thursday 13 September 2007

Books for Bedtime

When I send the girls upstairs to get ready for bed my main aim is, not surprisingly, to get them to sleep as quickly as possible. I berate them for lingering over the teeth brushing or huff and blow when I get up there only to find that Georgia has made a bed in the bath and Sally is busy telling a story in the next room. This being the case one would assume that the most appropriate bedtime books would be short of chapter and slow of pace – the equivalent of a prose lullaby. However as soon as I have actually got them into their respective beds I open the current bedtime book and the priorities shift in an instant. Now it is all about the reading, even if I am desperate to get downstairs to watch a film, go to sleep or heaven forbid actually read my own book (back to that later).

The bedtime book in our house can’t be boring because I have to read it at the time of day when I am most likely to fall asleep myself, frequently achieving a strange combination of reading and dozing which tends to muddle the storyline somewhat as my dreams sneak into the plot of Professor Branestawm or The Borrowers.

However it can’t be too emotionally charged either for obvious reasons. Many a book has lain abandoned on the bedside table for a few days until the chapter with witches could be read during the day, or indeed the entire story completed during daylight hours if necessary. The strong emotion doesn’t have to be fear to be outlawed at bedtime. Any kind of upset is obviously incompatible with sleep so even strong empathy is to be discouraged.

The historical fiction of our daytime book for the most part doesn’t cross over into the evening. The risk here is that daughter number two will fall asleep and miss a crucial scene, or perhaps more honestly that the reader will do likewise and everyone will be left wondering why Napoleon is driving a car with faulty breaks down a steep hillside.

So what I’m really looking for is a quality work of fiction with lively, possibly funny, characters, probably with a contemporary setting and preferably with short chapters to help me feel that I’m making progress, and have an easy exit strategy if by chance I do want to spend some time with my husband before we both fall asleep.

Taking all these criteria into account, my recent choices make no sense whatsoever but as usual were a case of, ‘This looks like a good book, its 8:30 and I can’t see anything else I fancy reading tonight.’

Firstly The Children of Charlecote by Philippa Pearce and Brian Fairfax-Lucy. It began life as the semi-fictionalized memoirs of Brian Fairfax-Lucy, describing what it was like to grow up in ‘the big house’ in the years before the First World War. By collaborating with the accomplished Philippa Pearce his story was shaped into a genuinely moving account that, as my girls remarked is both ‘brilliant and sad.’

If this novel had been written by an outsider it would have been a predictable romp about four children having jolly japes during the holidays at their big house in the country; stealing birds’ eggs, sneaking into the kitchen garden, forging forbidden friendships with village boys. All these things occur in this book but this is not a book about jolly adventures. It is about the isolation that dominates the children’s lives. Only the boys have outside acquaintances; Tom at his hated boarding school and Hugh a short-lived friendship with the local schoolmaster’s son. The girls have no friends as they have a governess and are virtually prisoners in the house grounds with little prospect of real choices in their adult lives either.

If this were an E. Nesbit novel the children’s parents would be physically distant, providing the space necessary for adventures, but distant in a fond, understanding way. Based as this is in reality rather than fantasy, the Hatton parents are primarily emotionally distant in their own self-interested ways; the father wishing to save money and gain political position for himself, the mother, although intermittently affectionate, always placing Charlecote, her house, before all else.

The Children of Charlecote also has a sense of authenticity on both sides of the baize door as the servants, whilst not central, are fully fleshed out characters rather than simple caricatures of the working class such as one might find in Nesbit or Blyton. The relationship between Hugh (the second son) and Walter (the butler) constantly threatened to bring a lump to my throat as Walter is emotionally the closest to a father Hugh will ever have.

As the main body of the book leaves us at the outbreak of war, the epilogue brings us up to date, filling in the ‘what happened next’ to the central characters. Although sad, my girls certainly approved of this device and liked that it hadn’t been given a false happy ending.

Having finished The Children of Charlecote we embarked upon The White Wolf by the marvelous Henrietta Branford. Having previously enjoyed an audio tape of her Fire, Bed and Bone which is told from the perspective of a dog during the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, we knew she could write as an animal and The White Wolf was another great example. I began it with a little trepidation, presuming we would enjoy it but concerned about it’s appropriateness for just before dreaming. Following a wolf as it does, I assumed there would be plenty of hunting and bloodthirsty ripping and rending. I was right although such scenes were described authentically, rather than being sensationalized so there were no complaints from the girls, even the squeamish one.

Branford shows how all the humans that the white wolf encounters want to use him for their own purposes whether that be companionship, protection or sacrifice. All feel that they are justified but by taking the wolfs’ part Branford shows us just how their wishes run contrary to the white wolf’s instinct for freedom and the company of other wild wolves.

As with The Children of Charlecote it was the sense of reality that impressed itself upon my girls. The White Wolf is quite a short book. At 84 well spaced pages we finished it in about four nights so it didn’t embed itself upon us as some novels have but they felt it was excellent and will be recommending it to a wolf-loving friend of theirs. It would probably appeal to anyone who likes action over description, although character and landscape are richly evoked, something is always happening and there is no sense of words wasted, despite frequent passages when as a reader you feel the poetic take over for a while.

I’m just about to send the girls upstairs to get ready, and then we’ll be reading the next installment in Drift by William Mayne. Last night we left the protagonists in a broken down hut adrift on an ice flow, with a bear at the door. Not exactly sticking to the bedtime book rules but at least I’ll get them into bed, if not asleep.




P.S. The Children of Charlecote has the added advantage that if you enjoy the book and happen to be in the U.K. you can visit the house. See the National Trust website for details.