Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc

Mary Norton’s 
(1903-1992) contribution to the modern classics of children’s fantasy 
is her series about The Borrowers. With her novels about tiny people living secretly 
alongside humans, Norton alludes to the fairy tale tradition of the undetected presence of 
house elves in human dwellings. The size of the minuscule Borrowers reminds us vaguely of 
Swift’s Lilliputians, allowing them to live behind grandfather clocks or under floorboards. 
Their euphemistic
56
name derives from their one-sided “symbiosis” with people. Daily needs 
are satisfied by taking lost or discarded things from humans. Taking it very seriously that their 
existence remains a secret to the unsuspecting hosts, the Borrowers craftily secure their 
supplies: Things of manageable size, which have a nasty habit of disappearing. Pins, buttons 
or pens for example
57
are easily misplaced and lost for good. Norton playfully suggests an 
explanation for this daily “magic”: The Borrowers are behind it all. Years later, Rowling 
picks up on this suggestion in her Harry Potter series, but substitutes the little people by 
magic. The appeal and popularity of The Borrowers (1952) was Norton’s incentive to 
elaborate her idea in further volumes: The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat 
(1959), The Borrowers Aloft (1961) and Poor Stainless: A New Story about the Borrowers 
(1971). 
Together with Lewis’s and Norton’s works Philippa Pearce’s (*1920) time fantasy 
Tom’s Midnight Garden 
(1958) had formative influence on the development of British 
children’s fantasy in the 1950s. Carpenter characterises Pearce’s mature work as “one of the 
few post-1945 books that can measure up to the best Victorian and Edwardian writing in its 
55
Lewis’ following statement is highly topical even today: “I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a 
children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.” C.S. Lewis. “Three Ways On 
Writing For Children”. In: Egoff; Stubbs; Ashley (Eds.) Only Connect, p. 210.
56
Compare Kümmerling-Meibauer, Klassiker der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, p. 792. 
57
Ibd., p. 793. 

---

60 
emotive power and the strength of its images.”
58
Pearce created a fantastic, moving story with 
the help of simple ingredients. An old, unreliable grandfather clock opens a connection 
between present and past events, the house and the garden and the children Tom and Hatty. 
Just as the thirteenth hour stands outside time itself, Tom’s presence in the garden is not 
subject to time as we know it. Cleverly, Pearce never states clearly whether Tom dreams his 
nightly escapades or whether the garden really appears during the magic hour. Time, space 
and the children’s magical friendship resemble a dewdrop, always in the unsteady balance 
between existence and vaporisation. As Tom can only access the garden when Hatty needs 
him or dreams of him,
59
there are gaps in time. Whilst Hatty grows up, the boy remains 
unchanged. Over time, Tom’s appearance becomes fainter to Hatty, until he completely fades 
away from her life and cannot re-enter the garden any more.
Pearce surprises the reader with a very unusual ending. We learn that Hatty is the 
younger version of old Mrs. Bartholomew, the owner of the house. The author leaves us with 
the mystery of how Tom could possibly have been part of Hatty’s youth so many years ago. 
Not many other novels can claim to touch their readers so deeply and to stimulate their 
imagination in such a way.
According to Carpenter and Prichard, Alan Garner (*1934) is “the most widely 
discussed British children’s writer of the 1960s and the 1970s”.
60
In the 1960s, when Garner 
started writing and publishing fantasy novels for children, siblings as protagonists were the 
literary fashion of the genre.
61
Consequently, his first two novels, The Weirdstone of 
Brisingamen
(1960) and its sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), feature brother and sister as 
“heroes”: The characters are flat and cliché-laden, without any personality. Set in rural 
Cheshire, the fast-paced works are partially based on Celtic mythology and folklore. Both 
evolve around a quest, during which magic intrudes upon the lives of children. Strongly 
alluding to Merlin, Garner introduces the wizard Cadellin, the children’s guide during their 
struggle against evil. The children are no more than bit players in a power-struggle between 
good and evil beyond their control or influence. In their walk-on parts, the siblings are only 
steered through the novel because – as protagonists – they must win.
58
Carpenter, Secret Gardens, p. 218. 
59
Kümmerling-Meibauer, Klassiker der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, p. 836. 
60
Carpenter; Prichard, The Oxford Companion, p. 198. 
61
Ibd., p. 199. 

---

61 
Whereas in Garner’s “apprentice works”
62
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The 
Moon of Gomrath
other-world magic breaks into reality, the children never actually leave the 
real world. Garner’s third novel Elidor (1965) works on the same principle of intrusion of 
myth and magic into reality. Here, Garner shows himself far more concerned with the realistic 
rendering of characters and a challenging magic quest. The four siblings become guardians of 
magic treasures from the wasteland realm of Elidor, which they hide from the enemies in their 
own world. In Garner’s third novel, the domestic life at Manchester is thrown off balance 
when the other side tries to retrieve the treasures, causing mayhem in the procedure.
Garner clearly matures over time from his debut work to The Owl Service (1967), an 
elaborate fantasy based on the Welsh Mabinogion. With The Owl Service, the author 
produced a demanding novel. The complexity of the work makes it a challenge for readers of 
all ages. Garner focuses on adolescence, a difficult phase of transition between childhood and 
adulthood.
63
The three teenage protagonists of The Owl Service are in the middle of
this 
critical period of time. It reveals itself to be an explosive cocktail of youthful uncertainty, 
emotional instability, waking sexuality and raging hormones, resulting in irregular, 
unpredictable violent eruptions. Caught up in a conflict-laden constellation of a love-triangle, 
fate and mythology the three protagonists struggle to find their own way. Several factors work 
towards the complexity of Garner’s novel. Intentional gaps in the narration, a distant narrator 
and various unassigned dialogues complicate the understanding of an intricate plot of three 
interwoven levels: Firstly a mythical story from the Welsh Abinogion, secondly the same 
constellation a generation earlier, and thirdly the present-day conflict. The interconnection of 
all three levels evokes the impression of a literary puzzle.
64
Over time, from The Weirdstone of Brisingamen to Red Shift (1973), Garner detaches 
the narrator more and more from the story, giving less and less clues and guidance. An 
overall, deliberate indeterminateness climaxes in ambiguous and controversial endings.
65
With his mature works, Garner thus introduces structures and techniques otherwise reserved 
to adult literature into children’s fantasy. Garner’s approach of writing about a certain 
geographic area, its historical and mythical heritage combined with the influence of magic 
62
Ibd. 
63
Compare Kümmerling-Meibauer, Klassiker der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, p. 378. 
64
Ibd. 
65
Compare Watson, The Cambridge Guide, p. 537. 

---

62 
affecting a group of children or teenagers, favourably siblings, has for example inspired Susan 
Cooper’s successful The Dark is Rising sequence.