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Grass Rope
Book by Mayne, William
- GenresChildrens
167 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
1 person is currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
William Mayne
135 books16 followersWilliam Mayne was a British writer of children's fiction. Born in Hull, he was educated at the choir school attached to Canterbury Cathedral and his memories of that time contributed to his early books. He lived most of his life in North Yorkshire.
He was described as one of the outstanding children's authors of the 20th Century by the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, and won the Carnegie Medal in 1957 for A Grass Rope and the Guardian Award in 1993 for Low Tide. He has written more than a hundred books, and is best known for his Choir School quartet comprising A Swarm in May, Choristers' Cake, Cathedral Wednesday and Words and Music, and his Earthfasts trilogy comprising Earthfasts, Cradlefasts and Candlefasts, an unusual evocation of the King Arthur legend.
A Swarm in May was filmed by the Children's Film Unit in 1983 and a five-part television series of Earthfasts was broadcast by the BBC in 1994.
William Mayne was imprisoned for two and a half years in 2004 after admitting to charges of child sexual abuse and was placed on the British sex offenders' register. His books were largely removed from shelves, and he died in disgrace in 2010.
He was described as one of the outstanding children's authors of the 20th Century by the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, and won the Carnegie Medal in 1957 for A Grass Rope and the Guardian Award in 1993 for Low Tide. He has written more than a hundred books, and is best known for his Choir School quartet comprising A Swarm in May, Choristers' Cake, Cathedral Wednesday and Words and Music, and his Earthfasts trilogy comprising Earthfasts, Cradlefasts and Candlefasts, an unusual evocation of the King Arthur legend.
A Swarm in May was filmed by the Children's Film Unit in 1983 and a five-part television series of Earthfasts was broadcast by the BBC in 1994.
William Mayne was imprisoned for two and a half years in 2004 after admitting to charges of child sexual abuse and was placed on the British sex offenders' register. His books were largely removed from shelves, and he died in disgrace in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 1, 2023
The Children's Literature Group has been doing a Carnegie Medal winners project since September 2022 (from the beginning, from 1936, until 2021, and now actually continuing on post 2021 as well, goig forward). And with William Mayne's A Grass Rope (with the 1957 winner), after reading a few text excerpts posted by a blogger who really seems to have majorly adored A Grass Rope and in particular Mayne's landscape descriptions, his sense of place and how the ample use of Yorkshire dialect firmly cements that sense of place, considering that I also and similarly absolutely love love love British children's literature that uses dialect, vernacular and shows descriptive landscapes (and which the online selections I encountered of A Grass Rope certainly all do very wonderfully and delightfully demonstrate), albeit A Grass Rope is no longer in print, was not all that easily available for purchasing and that the copies that were listed had very high price tags and ridiculous shipping costs, I still and happily decided to get my local independent bookstore to order A Grass Rope for me (which just arrived, and that yes, I immediately started reading).
But sorry, even though with A Grass Rope, I have definitely and majorly enjoyed William Mayne's general penmanship and that I do consider him to have been a supremely talented writer with a real and appreciated textual knack for providing delightful and authentically accurate descriptions (and that every part of Mayne's narrative for A Grass Rope and not just the textual bits and pieces I previously encountered online marvellously and engagingly presents this), well, upon discovering and reading that William Mayne died in disgrace as a registered pedophile, was in fact incarcerated for sexually abusing a number of girls (and with some of his victims being as young as seven or eight years of age, with none of these girls supposedly over the age of thirteen), and that Mayne seemingly baited and enticed his young victims by promising to make them the main characters in his novels, I simply cannot and will not consider A Grass Rope with more than two stars (and that after finishing my perusal, yes indeed, every single verbal detail I have found in A Grass Rope regarding the two main and female protagonists, regarding Nan and Mary Owland, this does leave a very much strange taste in my mouth and a very troubling and problematic, rather offensive subtext).
For honestly and truly, I am simply unable (and maybe also unwilling) to separate William Mayne's personal life and his pedophilic tendencies from his writing, and I also thus cannot help but wonder with a sickening sense of dread if the two Owland sisters in A Grass Rope might have in fact been modelled after some of Mayne's sexual assault victims, if Nan and Mary might have been based on the girls enticed to come to William Mayne's house by his above mentioned promises. And yes indeed, if naive and rather trusting I when I was a young girl had been told by a male children's author I respected and admired that if I were to come to his home I could be a character in one or more of his novels, yes, my book loving childhood self would very likely have totally, innocently and joyfully jumped at this chance (and that this all really does make me feel ill, hugely uncomfortable and not being able to read A Grass Rope without an all encompassing negativity, a cringing attitude of reader beware, a sense of yuck, yuck, yuck, and that William Mayne's delightful textual landscapes and sense of place, although they are wonderfully rendered, simply cannot and will not make that sense of uneasiness and creepiness vanish or even be somewhat mitigated).
But sorry, even though with A Grass Rope, I have definitely and majorly enjoyed William Mayne's general penmanship and that I do consider him to have been a supremely talented writer with a real and appreciated textual knack for providing delightful and authentically accurate descriptions (and that every part of Mayne's narrative for A Grass Rope and not just the textual bits and pieces I previously encountered online marvellously and engagingly presents this), well, upon discovering and reading that William Mayne died in disgrace as a registered pedophile, was in fact incarcerated for sexually abusing a number of girls (and with some of his victims being as young as seven or eight years of age, with none of these girls supposedly over the age of thirteen), and that Mayne seemingly baited and enticed his young victims by promising to make them the main characters in his novels, I simply cannot and will not consider A Grass Rope with more than two stars (and that after finishing my perusal, yes indeed, every single verbal detail I have found in A Grass Rope regarding the two main and female protagonists, regarding Nan and Mary Owland, this does leave a very much strange taste in my mouth and a very troubling and problematic, rather offensive subtext).
For honestly and truly, I am simply unable (and maybe also unwilling) to separate William Mayne's personal life and his pedophilic tendencies from his writing, and I also thus cannot help but wonder with a sickening sense of dread if the two Owland sisters in A Grass Rope might have in fact been modelled after some of Mayne's sexual assault victims, if Nan and Mary might have been based on the girls enticed to come to William Mayne's house by his above mentioned promises. And yes indeed, if naive and rather trusting I when I was a young girl had been told by a male children's author I respected and admired that if I were to come to his home I could be a character in one or more of his novels, yes, my book loving childhood self would very likely have totally, innocently and joyfully jumped at this chance (and that this all really does make me feel ill, hugely uncomfortable and not being able to read A Grass Rope without an all encompassing negativity, a cringing attitude of reader beware, a sense of yuck, yuck, yuck, and that William Mayne's delightful textual landscapes and sense of place, although they are wonderfully rendered, simply cannot and will not make that sense of uneasiness and creepiness vanish or even be somewhat mitigated).
January 1, 2022
A wonderful book that explores reality and fairyland, with a brilliant understanding of how children think. The Yorkshire dialect that occasionally appears is not easy for an outsider, but makes a great contribution to establishing the very strong sense of place.
The cast of characters is interesting, particularly when Adam Forrest is introduced. It's almost a bit of deus ex machina because he's not part of the local families and yet he is treated nearly like a member. But without him, the story would never work. He also might be the most accessible character for readers to identify with.
There's a lot of mundane activity (some of which would be rather exotic to today's readers who don't live on farms and who never do their own repairs, etc. ) but it's described beautifully. The relationships between the strongly-drawn characters, whether child-to-child or parent-to-child or other adult-to-child, are all fascinating and individual.
I found some incidental similarities to other books that I have recently read: Beneath the Hill and The Fox Hole. Also Mayne's own Underground Alley.
The cast of characters is interesting, particularly when Adam Forrest is introduced. It's almost a bit of deus ex machina because he's not part of the local families and yet he is treated nearly like a member. But without him, the story would never work. He also might be the most accessible character for readers to identify with.
There's a lot of mundane activity (some of which would be rather exotic to today's readers who don't live on farms and who never do their own repairs, etc. ) but it's described beautifully. The relationships between the strongly-drawn characters, whether child-to-child or parent-to-child or other adult-to-child, are all fascinating and individual.
I found some incidental similarities to other books that I have recently read: Beneath the Hill and The Fox Hole. Also Mayne's own Underground Alley.
July 26, 2019
I loved the interaction between local folklore and reality, and the sensitive description of the nighttime adventure of meeting (sort of) the unicorn.
It's really too bad that the author's life has so fatally marred the reputation of his books. He wrote so well.
It's really too bad that the author's life has so fatally marred the reputation of his books. He wrote so well.
October 23, 2017
I may try this one another time, it was just too sleepy for me right now. It literally put me to sleep every time I tried to read it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews