A Sense of Story and A Sounding of Storytellers

 

A Sense of Story and A Sounding of Storytellers are not really two books, more like one and a half. A Sense of Story was published in 1971, featuring nineteen short essays about (then) contemporary children's authors, from the UK, the US and Australia. In 1979 came A Sounding of Storytellers, which contains fourteen essays, seven revised versions of pieces from the earlier book, and seven new ones.

John Rowe Townsend was himself a children's writer, and a thoughtful, interested and insightful critic. He names Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden as a 'masterpiece'; he correctly points out Alan Garner's almost completely flat characters, but forgives him; he notes the currents of deep time slowly flowing beneath the surface of Rosemary Sutcliff's Roman novels. These collections showcase many of the favourite authors of my childhood; is it any wonder that, having picked up the second volume in a secondhand shop, I immediately ordered the first? I couldn't resist finding out what Townsend had to say about Joan Aiken, L.M. Boston, H.F. Brinsmead, Eleanor Estes, Madeleine L'Engle (he drily remarks that he can't like her Austin family as much as they like themselves!) and Patricia Wrightson.

There are also writers here I've never come across (mostly American), like Bill and Vera Cleaver, Virginia Hamilton and John Christopher. I'm also wondering why I've never read anything by Andre Norton. William Mayne, now disgraced and almost impossible to find as a result, appears in both books, long before his public downfall. Townsend also writes about his long-time partner, Jill Paton Walsh, with admirable objectivity. In many ways, these books were a meander down memory lane, and a very enjoyable one.