Irene J. Henry penned this review.
This reprint of two short children’s novels (The Magic Bed-Knob and Bonfires and Broomsticks) was a favorite of my grade-school contemporaries, but for some reason I never read it then. I recall my friends reading the book and creating a fad for magic, spell-casting, witches and so on, eventually graduating to The Witch of Blackbird Pond and other kid-friendly magic and fantasy novels. When I had the opportunity to review the book, I realized that I’d been given a second chance at childhood.
Mary Norton, also the author of The Borrowers series of children’s fantasy novels, was born in England in 1903, and died in 1992. The first book, The Magic Bed-Knob, was written in 1943.
It tells the story of three English children, sent into the countryside to spend the summer with an aunt (possibly to avoid the war, though it’s not explicitly mentioned). The children befriend a local spinster and discover that she is a witch-in-training. Their adventures with Miss Price and their trips to other places (home to London and later to a tropical island) on their magical flying brass bed form the story’s core.
The second book, Bonfires and Broomsticks, was written in 1957 but is set two years after the first story. The children return to the country village to find that Miss Price has mysteriously abandoned her magical ambitions. The magic bed and bedknob are reunited, however, and a trip back in time results in a new friendship with another apprentice magician.
The characters are well sketched, but I would suppose that modern children might find them old-fashioned. The younger brother, Paul, is set as the innocent-yet-wise instigator, but his older brother and sister carry much of the dramatic focus, as does Miss Price. The bickering relationship among the siblings rings true. The magical trip to the past, and the romance of Miss Price that results, is sweet and poignant, and just about right for the pre-teen reader. The resolution is intriguing in the best tradition of time travel stories.
I found it interesting that for books that made my little friends take up magic as a fad, the books actually treat magic with a bit of suspicion and a message that magic is dangerous, unpredictable, and results in messes and problems. It’s not clear whether this is the intended message or whether the author simply wanted to make the stories exciting. The perilous situations the adventurers get into are real enough and, as Miss Price says at the close of the first book, “Perhaps (magic) doesn’t bring good results in the end.”
Some parents might want to discuss the concept of historical viewpoints with their kids in connection with the adventure with the “cannibals.” The author uses images and “comic” stereotyping common in the 1930s and 1940s to portray a “cannibal” tribe that menaces the adventurers, and many people would find this distasteful at best, and downright racist at worst. However, this affords the parent an opportunity to explain how times have changed, and how we can learn about a society’s viewpoints by reading the fiction of the period, while not necessarily partaking or approving of the same opinions.
The writing style is simple, humorous, and elegantly descriptive. The reprint paperback edition also reprints the Erik Blegvad pen and ink illustrations, which are lovely in their detail and texture. These are two classic children’s fantasy stories, and as my classmates found, are an enjoyable introduction to the genre.
(Odyssey Classics, Harcourt, Inc., 2000)
