Another book read for Kaggsy and Simon Stuck-in-a-Book‘s #1962Club, and this was a surprise extra entry. I’m so grateful to Calmgrove for mentioning this book as I had forgotten it existed / I had it and am not sure I knew it was published in 1962. When I saw the mention I remembered it and there it was on my Children’s Bookshelf (handily in my study, so I didn’t have to go far) and I had a super time reading it. I remembered the story as I started it, and I also showed it to Matthew and while we didn’t read a lot of the same books growing up, he remembered this one very clearly, too!

Pauline Clarke – “The Twelve and the Genii”

(From my collection: this edition published in 1977; I probably acquired it in about 1980)

She would have to believe it if she saw it. But if she made a noise, then they might freeze, they would, and she would laugh at him and call him batty. His heart felt big with such a thrilling secret inside it. He did not know ho not to tell someone. But of course, once he had told, then it was no longer his secret. There would be the joy of telling, of showing Jane, or proving it, and then there would be Jane wanting to join in everything and enjoy it too. (p. 10)

Max and his family, mum and dad (amazingly for a children’s book of this period, both present and not dead / at sea or something), his older sister Jane and much older brother Philip have just moved into a new house in Yorkshire. We’re thrown right into the action from the start, with Max sitting outside the attic, wondering at the fact that the wooden soldiers he found wrapped in a cloth under the floorboards appear to be alive.

They are living near the Brontes’ parsonage in Haworth, and as news gets out of his find, there’s soon speculation that they are the toys that belonged to the Brontes, about whom they wrote stories and histories. This appears to be borne out by the soldiers themselves – never toys, always dignified, actual people, they tell Max of their history and of the genii who used to preside over them.

Where nowadays we’d read of social media posts, in this fine book we’re treated to a brisk debate in the local paper’s letters pages about whether they are the soldiers and where they should go, and when Philip gets involved and sends off to let an American academic know, the peril increases. The whole village gets a sort of collective excitement about it all, with many of the inhabitants longing to see what there’s rumoured to be seen, not all for financial gain.

Jane is a great character; inclined to find them sweet at first, she’s immensely practical, bringing out her doll’s house plates and glasses and providing food and drink. I don’t (want to) think this is because she’s a girl, but because she’s a bit older than Max; she’s also brave and resourceful.

As well as the good story and lovely characterisation of Max, Jane and the soldiers, there is room for some beautiful descriptions, especially of the night-time scenes, and also the “Brontyfan”, the vicar, Mr Howson, who relates matters to his own religion and has a rather lovely paragraph where he prays that Jane, pining for Mr Rochester but destined to “have to marry a quite ordinary man like himself” will meet a “good, true [man] who should value the flame inside her and not dim it” (p. 72), quite an unusual passage in an unusual and lovely book.

This was my second read for #1962Club. I haven’t started my third one but I have until Sunday to read and review it, so fingers crossed I manage!