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Penengro
This is an exciting story set in Ireland in which an orphan, Rory, is adopted by a couple because he resembles their dead son. He runs away to escape from this uncomfortable situation, and meets and then lives with a group of gypsies. This book was close to the heart of the author, Hilda van Stockum, as she always sympathized with the outsiders in life. She was also close to nature and had a distrust of machinery, traits shared by the Romanies she wrote about.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
2 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Hilda van Stockum
54 books76 followersBorn February 9, 1908, in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Hilda van Stockum was a noted author, illustrator and painter, whose work has won the Newbery Honor and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Brotherhood Award. She was also a charter member of the Children's Book Guild and the only person to have served as its president for two consecutive terms.
Van Stockum was raised partly in Ireland, and also in Ymuiden, the seaport of Amsterdam, where her father was port commander. With no car and few companions, she recalled turning to writing out of boredom. She was also a talented artist. A penchant for art evidently ran in the family, which counted the van Goghs as distant relatives.
In the 1920s, she worked as an illustrator for the Dublin-based publishing house, Browne & Nolan. She illustrated her first book, an Irish reader, in 1930, and her last book in 2001, giving her a 71-year career as a book-illustrator.
Van Stockum attended art school in Amsterdam and later in Dublin, where she met and later married Ervin Ross "Spike" Marlin, who at the time was her brother Willem's roommate at Trinity College. Willem Van Stockum was killed piloting a bomber over France in 1944. Van Stockum memorialized him in her book The Mitchells (1945), about the travails of raising a family in Washington, D.C., during the war. She often used her family as models for the written and illustrated characters in her books.
Not surprisingly then, Van Stockum was, in fact, raising a family in Washington, D.C., at the time, having married Marlin, who by 1935 was a Roosevelt administration official.
She had written and illustrated her first book for children, A Day on Skates , in 1934. It had a foreword by her aunt-by-marriage, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and won a Newbery Honor. During the next four decades she averaged one book per year written, illustrated, translated or some combination.
Van Stockum and the couple's six children were in tow for Marlin's peripatetic assignments, and it seems nothing short of miraculous that she managed to write and illustrate a score of children's books. In addition, she translated and illustrated editions of many other authors.
Asked in 1942 by the Washington Post how she did it, Van Stockum replied with characteristic aplomb, "By neglecting my other duties." Highly organized in her work, she illustrated and painted in the winter and wrote in the summer, when she could get her children out of the house.
Known for their warm, vivid, and realistic depictions of family life in the face of danger and difficulties, van Stockum's books typically featured families and were set wherever she happened to be living; Francie on the Run (1939), about a child who escapes from a hospital, was set in Ireland. Friendly Gables (1958) completed the Mitchells' saga — by then they had moved to Montreal from Washington.
Her most popular book, The Winged Watchman (1962) is the story of two Dutch boys who help the Resistance during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. The book is based on letters Hilda received from relatives in the Netherlands, and has been praised for conveying an accurate sense of life under Nazi occupation.
Hilda van Stockum died in 2006 at the age of 98.
Van Stockum was raised partly in Ireland, and also in Ymuiden, the seaport of Amsterdam, where her father was port commander. With no car and few companions, she recalled turning to writing out of boredom. She was also a talented artist. A penchant for art evidently ran in the family, which counted the van Goghs as distant relatives.
In the 1920s, she worked as an illustrator for the Dublin-based publishing house, Browne & Nolan. She illustrated her first book, an Irish reader, in 1930, and her last book in 2001, giving her a 71-year career as a book-illustrator.
Van Stockum attended art school in Amsterdam and later in Dublin, where she met and later married Ervin Ross "Spike" Marlin, who at the time was her brother Willem's roommate at Trinity College. Willem Van Stockum was killed piloting a bomber over France in 1944. Van Stockum memorialized him in her book The Mitchells (1945), about the travails of raising a family in Washington, D.C., during the war. She often used her family as models for the written and illustrated characters in her books.
Not surprisingly then, Van Stockum was, in fact, raising a family in Washington, D.C., at the time, having married Marlin, who by 1935 was a Roosevelt administration official.
She had written and illustrated her first book for children, A Day on Skates , in 1934. It had a foreword by her aunt-by-marriage, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and won a Newbery Honor. During the next four decades she averaged one book per year written, illustrated, translated or some combination.
Van Stockum and the couple's six children were in tow for Marlin's peripatetic assignments, and it seems nothing short of miraculous that she managed to write and illustrate a score of children's books. In addition, she translated and illustrated editions of many other authors.
Asked in 1942 by the Washington Post how she did it, Van Stockum replied with characteristic aplomb, "By neglecting my other duties." Highly organized in her work, she illustrated and painted in the winter and wrote in the summer, when she could get her children out of the house.
Known for their warm, vivid, and realistic depictions of family life in the face of danger and difficulties, van Stockum's books typically featured families and were set wherever she happened to be living; Francie on the Run (1939), about a child who escapes from a hospital, was set in Ireland. Friendly Gables (1958) completed the Mitchells' saga — by then they had moved to Montreal from Washington.
Her most popular book, The Winged Watchman (1962) is the story of two Dutch boys who help the Resistance during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. The book is based on letters Hilda received from relatives in the Netherlands, and has been praised for conveying an accurate sense of life under Nazi occupation.
Hilda van Stockum died in 2006 at the age of 98.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 29, 2013
Story of a young boy who runs away (so far, similar theme to Francie on the Run) and finds protection among the Irish "tinkers". He learns about their culture and comes to respect them. The book shows why the tinkers or Romanies have been outcasts in Ireland, and doesn't hide some of their customs that have made them unpopular, while showing the richness of a parallel lifestyle. I like the way Hilda van Stockum makes a case for tolerance of these Irish gypsies.
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March 24, 2013Hilda van Stockum is wonderful. Always upholding love and courage. In this story, an Irish orphan is taken in by a Romany band. Evocative and thought-provoking in a way adults and children can share.
November 9, 2017
Penengro is a wonderful novel that celebrates the Romani gypsies and their way of life. The story is filled with captivating adventures, admirable characters, and delightful animals. It carries themes that will relate to older children and adults alike. It's both philosophical and whimsical with gems of truths and lively illustrations throughout. The ending is bittersweet.
Posted on Amanda's Books and More
Posted on Amanda's Books and More
February 17, 2023
I was captivated by the beginning and enjoyed throughout. It wavers for interest in the late middle but finishes strong.
April 15, 2016
In this tremendous story of gypsy life in Ireland, Hilda van Stockum brilliantly juxtaposes the world of the reader with that of the Romany. Rory, the runaway boy who has joined the gypsies, serves as our surrogate in this foreign territory. Along with the adventures you might expect, there is so much wisdom shared, such as:
"I wonder if it is so good, this writing. What we Romanies know, we know from remembering. But you can't remember everything, so you choose what is important. That, you hear often and lock in your mind. What is small or mean is forgotten. But when you write words on paper and keep writing and writing as the gorgios [non-gypsies] do, then every little thing that happens has the same chance to be remembered as the great and good things, and because the small things happen oftener, the great and good things may get snowed under. I think our way is best. It does not fret the mind with what is not worth knowing." (pp.100-1)
This was written in 1972, but think how much more true is it now in the age of the Internet, cell phones, and GPS, where people do not commit the contact details of even their best friends to memory, but rely on electronics instead. What would the Romany make of Wikipedia, where obsolete video games are given more space in an "encyclopedia" than major historical figures?
Another:
"What would you say if a beautiful hand-painted book full of gold and silver pictures and singing poetry fell into the hands of greedy and ignorant people who tore it apart to sell it page by page, not caring if whole pictures got lost, thinking only of immediate gain? [...] That's what's happening to God's handwritten book, the book of nature. Piece by piece it is being misused, poisoned, thrown away, and laid waste." (pp.113-14)
The debate on gypsy life vs. modern society (pp.130-31) is extraordinary, and it is stunning to see such a thing included in what is essentially a book for children.
"I wonder if it is so good, this writing. What we Romanies know, we know from remembering. But you can't remember everything, so you choose what is important. That, you hear often and lock in your mind. What is small or mean is forgotten. But when you write words on paper and keep writing and writing as the gorgios [non-gypsies] do, then every little thing that happens has the same chance to be remembered as the great and good things, and because the small things happen oftener, the great and good things may get snowed under. I think our way is best. It does not fret the mind with what is not worth knowing." (pp.100-1)
This was written in 1972, but think how much more true is it now in the age of the Internet, cell phones, and GPS, where people do not commit the contact details of even their best friends to memory, but rely on electronics instead. What would the Romany make of Wikipedia, where obsolete video games are given more space in an "encyclopedia" than major historical figures?
Another:
"What would you say if a beautiful hand-painted book full of gold and silver pictures and singing poetry fell into the hands of greedy and ignorant people who tore it apart to sell it page by page, not caring if whole pictures got lost, thinking only of immediate gain? [...] That's what's happening to God's handwritten book, the book of nature. Piece by piece it is being misused, poisoned, thrown away, and laid waste." (pp.113-14)
The debate on gypsy life vs. modern society (pp.130-31) is extraordinary, and it is stunning to see such a thing included in what is essentially a book for children.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews