I was always more of an E. Nesbit kid than a Mary Norton kid. I don’t know why, exactly. I mean, it would be easy to simply claim that E. Nesbit’s books are better than Mary Norton’s, but then I was seven, and what did I know from good books? Also, I could make the claim that the E. Nesbit books were redolent of the pre-WWI era in England that I later found so fascinating, while the Mary Norton books were clearly post-WWII England, and as such much less romantic and vibrant. But, then, isn’t that just saying that I was more of an E. Nesbit kid than a Mary Norton kid? Surely, if anything, my adult interest in one era over another is more likely to be the result of a childhood fascination with the Five Children, rather than some independent character trait (vaddevah dat means).
Now, that’s not to say that I disliked the Mary Norton books, even to the extent that it would be meaningful to say of me-as-a-child that I disliked any books at all. I have fond memories of The Borrowers, and I have fond memories of Bedknob and Broomstick, even if for some reason I think of it as Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Even though, had you asked me, I would probably have remembered that there was only the one magic bedknob, and might conceivably have remembered that there was only the one broomstick featured in the story. Still, I have to make an effort to say the title correctly.
Bedknob is (hey, I did it correctly!) very much an E. Nesbit knockoff, and yet manages to be a perfectly good book on its own. There are things I don’t quite like about it, and the solutions to the three problems in the book are not the kind of perfect, symmetrical, inevitable solution that really satisfies. On the other hand, the three children are quite good, particularly Paul, and Mrs. Price is lovely, and I have a fondness for the Sergeant. If you were looking for something of this sort, I would point you at the Five Children books first, but if you’ve read those, and the Enchanted Castle, and maybe the Railway Children, and are still looking for something of this sort, then I would point you at Bedknob. Or, of course, if you were in a smallish public library, and wanted something to show you where Harry Potter came from, and to nobody’s great surprise there was no E. Nesbit on the shelf at all, because their one copy of The Wouldbegoods was taken out in Nineteen Ought Ninety-Four (probably by Your Humble Blogger) and when it was returned, it fell behind the shelf and hasn’t been seen since.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.