World Book Night 2021: Book Twenty-one

 

To Sir With Love by E R Braithwaite (Vintage Books)

Own eBook

I took quite a gamble leaving this book for my last. I'd read it before many years ago and it is a novel that left a big impression, and even a good twenty years on I could still recall lines from the book. Would a reread tarnish my memories, should I just stick to my 'book shadow' thoughts?

In this case I am really pleased that rereading the book was a pleasure, it was still the incredible book that I remembered. I had forgotten many details but as I read through the book it was a little bit like meeting up with an old friend after many years. I definitely had remembered the big themes.

Although the book is now over 60 years old I was struck by how little has actually changed in the world in so many ways. It is also interesting to think that this book is a contemporary to the setting for the Call the Midwife books, in so many ways the books complement each other and create a window back to the London East End of the 1950s

What Braithwaite has to say about education, racism, gang culture and London is still horribly accurate and in many ways A Dutiful Boy, which is also a World Book Night book this year, is the same story just about more recent times.

I am glad that I left this until last, and I am glad that my challenge did give me the opportunity to reread the book and fall in love with it all over again. 

Family Reading in 2021

 

Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (Oxford University Press)

Library Book

Although the new school year for the Kentishbookboy hasn't included writing book reviews so far we are still reading books together occasionally,  the first one for 2021 was Tom's Midnight Garden. I remember reading this a child, and then again more recently when I was studying children's literature. I think that we picked this book  as opposed to any other as it was on a list of titles that were recommended for Year 6 pupils.

The Kentishbookboy (and his mum) didn't fall in love with the book in the same way that I had as a child, they found Tom himself to be an annoying character and I can see where they are coming from. He certainly isn't very much like the 'heroes' of more modern books.

I was more surprised at how old fashioned the book felt on this reread. Then I did some sums... the book was written in 1958 and I imagine that it was a contemporary setting. The time travel takes us back to the 1890s. This means Tom travels around 60 years in time. However reading the book now (2021) we are travelling back the same amount of time to meet Tom - the culture shock for the Kentishbookboy was the same as Tom's!

I still love the book, but again it is definitely a book shadow that I was remembering - scenes that I recall as being huge and important (because of the pictures they created in my mind) actually came at the very end of the book and weren't as pivotal as I thought. There were huge chunks of Hatty's story that I'd forgotten. As well as the very 1950s attitudes of Tom's aunt & uncle.

I'm a bit sad that the Kentishbookboy didn't love the book as much as I did but Tom's life was far closer to being one I recognised - I was only reading it with a 30 year gap after all and there hadn't been quite the same technological advances in those 3 decades as we've seen since the 1990s. Perhaps I should try to find him a modern classic (not fantasy) that has the same age gap between setting and now to see how that fares...

Micro Reviews 16 & 17

 

The Island & One August Night by Victoria Hislop

I read The Island years ago, possibly not that long after it came out and absolutely loved it. Novels in set in Greece are always going to catch my eye and then to discover that this one was set somewhere I'd visited was even better. 

Mr Norfolkbookworm & I visited Spinalonga (and stayed in the village near by) on our very first holiday together back in the late 1990s, although on returning a few years ago we didn't go back to Spinalonga, it was far too windy & rough! As an aside the one thing I don't think that Hislop did capture was just how darned cold it can get in Crete out of tourist season - we had snow!

Although parts of The Island had stuck in my mind since I read it when I heard there was a sequel coming I knew that I had to reread it first - and again I discovered that it was actually the book shadow that had stuck. I remembered the broad sweep of the story but very little of the detail, but as soon as I started reading I felt relaxed and happy to be back with an old friend.

I moved straight on to One August Night and unlike the curse of many sequels I'm pleased to say that I loved this book as much as the first one. It was like the feeling I always get when I step off a plane in Greece and take that first breath of warm air - scented with aviation fuel and herbs - knowing that I am back in my happy place.

The sequel touches very briefly on one of the plot strands from The Island but is definitely a new story, that being said I am glad I reread The Island first as I am not sure that it would work quite so well as a stand alone but it was a great book and just what was needed in the autumn of 2020.