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Magic casements.

Article Excerpt
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of reading Eleanor Farjeon's entrancing introduction to her short story collection The Little Bookroom (1955). She described growing up in a house filled with reading material, where "it would have been more natural to live without clothes than without books." Although there were books in every room, the Little Bookroom was given over to them completely, crammed floor to ceiling with haphazardly arranged titles, "much trash, and more treasure." Every visit the young Eleanor made to the bookroom was an expedition of discovery, every book examined had the potential to be a lifelong friend. I desperately longed for just such a room, to experience what Farjeon so enticingly described: "That dusty bookroom, whose windows were never opened, through whose panes the summer sun struck a dingy shaft where gold specks danced and shimmered, opened magic casements for me through which I looked out on other worlds and times than those I lived in: worlds filled with poetry and prose and fact and fantasy."

The child Eleanor, born in 1881, grew up to be an accomplished writer best known for her lyrical poems and stories for children. Sadly and undeservedly, most of her work is now out of print, with just the odd poem occasionally appearing in one anthology of another. Several years ago I was delighted to see Candlewick publish two different editions of her lighter-than-air story "Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep." And now the New York Review of Books, which is just embarking on a program to reprint children's classics, has chosen The Little Bookroom as one of its inaugural offerings.

The Little Bookroom is an immensely satisfying collection of Farjeon's own favorite stories, easy to get lost in, and lingering in the mind long after the book is closed. Her delight in language and mastery of form draw the reader in immediately: "One night the King's Daughter looked out of her window, and wanted the Moon'; "There was in the village a simpleton who was not the ordinary type of village idiot, by any means"; "Did you ever hear the tale of the Six Princesses who lived for the sake of their hair alone?" The stories defy categorization, mixing fact and fantasy, sense and nonsense. There's nothing cloying or sentimental about them, shot through as they are with wisdom and longing, taking unexpected plot twists just when you think you know where the story is headed. The black-and-white crosshatch illustrations by Edward Ardizzone elaborate on the stories without overwhelming them.

Several of the stories could easily stand alone as excellent picture books. I particularly liked "The Little Dressmaker," in which the unselfish nature of a young seamstress, who is forced to sew dresses to make other girls look beautiful, is rewarded in the end, but not quite the way we expect. "The Seventh Princess" relates how a wise, regretful queen makes sure that her beloved daughter's life is happier than her own. A little boy's touching devotion to his very ordinary father is protected by a compassionate teacher in "The Connemara Donkey." And the relationship between ten-year-old Griselda and her one-hundred-and-ten-year-old great-grandmother is almost unbearably poignant in the unforgettable "And I Dance Mine Own Child." Like the magic casements of her childhood, Farjeon opens windows for us onto worlds both mysterious and reassuringly familiar.

Another welcome reissue from the...

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