July 2011: Eve Garnett's "The Family from One End Street" and our next book

We had our second meeting yesterday morning: it was lively and interesting - and we also welcomed a new member!  There was much enthusiasm about our June book, The Family from One End Street (1937) by Eve Garnett, and much to discuss and to learn about its social origins, philanthropic intent, plot lines, characters and style versus other books of the time. Some childhood memories were sparked, and we learned more about the author and her work. 

If anyone wants to take a look at the mural in the Children's House at Bow which was painted by Eve Garnett, here are the weblinks:

The Children's House, Bow, London

Mural by Eve Garnett in The Children's House at Bow

Our 11-year old "shadow" reader sent in her own One End Street book review which she has said can be published here.

“Well, I enjoyed it and I liked the pictures in it.  I liked how they put underneath what the pictures were, so on page 147 it says, “crammed full of old tins and bits of paper”, which is a line in the book and it makes you understand which bit of the story the picture refers to.

"My favourite chapter was The Adventure of the Parked Car.  It was nice because the title just says 'The Adventure of the Parked Car' and so you just think 'oh, it's a parked car' but then people get in it and they drive away and as soon as they drive away it makes you feel like something exciting is going to happen.  I also liked it because it had a wide range of characters like the 'stuck up boy' at the birthday party, 'playful Joe' and 'the kind parents'.

"It was a little bit strange reading such an old fashioned book at the beginning but once you kind of got used to it, it felt like that was the normal way to write books, so it didn't feel strange anymore.

"My favourite character was John because he was always getting into some kind of mischief and he loves cars, and in the parked car one it was funny when he got into it.  And I also liked Kate, I liked how she was so different from most girls and that she was very, very adventurous and a complete contrast to her sister, Lily Rose."

Our book for our August meeting is Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz, published in 2000 - the first in his very popular series about the boy spy, Alex Rider.  This was also made into a movie in 2006 - but it's definitely one case where the book is better than the film!

June 2011: our first meeting and our first book

Thanks to everyone who came to our first meeting at Bath Library this morning: it was great to meet you all!  I loved sharing such vivid memories of the books we all read as children, or that we remembered being read to us, as well as getting some great ideas for new books to try.

This month we are reading The Family from One End Street, written and illustrated by Eve Garnett, which tells the story of the Ruggles who live at the heart of the fictional town of Otwell.  When first published in 1937 it became only the second ever winner of the Carnegie Medal for Children's Literature, beating J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit to the prize, amongst others.   In 2007 it was selected by the Carnegie judges as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years.

Garnett wrote two sequels: The Further Adventures of the Family from One End Street which was published in 1956, and The Holiday at the Dew Drop Inn, published in 1962.

For anyone interested in pairing books to read for comparisons, Jacqueline Wilson's Bed and Breakfast Star (2006) or Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and Three Quarters (1982) could prove interesting choices.

See you all on Wednesday 6 July!