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The River Boy
Hardcover
First published October 7, 1976
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January 19, 2023At regular intervals in my reading, I like to pick out one of my 'lucky dip' choices from the stacks of 'strays', 'waifs' & 'rejects' available at very modest cost in second-hand or charity shops. From that array of tattered covers & odd titles & unfamiliar names, are several books intended for younger readers: childrens' books! I am, for ever, at times, a child, & appreciate a good story without modern issues & controversies as main themes. Read into that what you will.
This 114-page story, by Theresa Whistler, 'The River Boy', I found abandoned, without a colourful cover; a slim, plain ochre-yellow hardback, with a hand-written, pen-and-ink, dedication written by an affectionate uncle Peter to his young niece, Kathy, from 1984 on the fly-leaf, with '30p' in pencil at the corner. At the back cover, a childish scrawl of its recipient, 'Katy...aeg 7'...as if confirming that she had read it...at 7! Astonishing! Why?
The story was first published by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1955; republished in 1976 by O.U.P. (with fine illustrations by Richard Shirley-Smith & an sensitive introduction by Lord David Cecil, who I remember as a cameo actor in 1970s comedies on TV!).
It tells the very poetic adventures of a small boy, Nathaniel/Nat, fatherless & living in an isolated valley (in the inter-war years?), without a river, with only trees, birds, a pony, a dog & other creatures - and the moody weather! - for company, other than a caring but distracted mother, a grandfather, a nervous housekeeper & an old gardener. So, naturally, he wanders free in the local woods & hills, seeking some inspiration for his dreams & idle thoughts. He finds his alter ego, his spirit, in the shape of a river boy, a sprite-like being, who leads him on an adventure that defies Nat's understanding but grips him with its miraculous happenings.
It is written in a literary style that had me in its clutches - part fantasy, part reality, part psychological...& well-beyond what I would have read, or had read to me, at primary school.
As a 'boy' myself, I naturally identified with Nat's childish wonder at what happens to his thoughts & feelings as he is whisked off into a dream-world, all based on the river, which once flowed through the valley (& still, in his imagination, does...an ancient source of myths & tales & dreams).
I even had to reach for my dictionary with words I had never encountered before!
Theresa Whistler?...well...she whistles! Why have I never heard of her? What happened after this entertaining, though ethereal, children's story was published? My imagination is in the river of life, a life that can be full of mysteries...& this relic of a bygone age of stories for boys was a reminder that so many writers disappear into a misty void of oblivion.
This 114-page story, by Theresa Whistler, 'The River Boy', I found abandoned, without a colourful cover; a slim, plain ochre-yellow hardback, with a hand-written, pen-and-ink, dedication written by an affectionate uncle Peter to his young niece, Kathy, from 1984 on the fly-leaf, with '30p' in pencil at the corner. At the back cover, a childish scrawl of its recipient, 'Katy...aeg 7'...as if confirming that she had read it...at 7! Astonishing! Why?
The story was first published by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1955; republished in 1976 by O.U.P. (with fine illustrations by Richard Shirley-Smith & an sensitive introduction by Lord David Cecil, who I remember as a cameo actor in 1970s comedies on TV!).
It tells the very poetic adventures of a small boy, Nathaniel/Nat, fatherless & living in an isolated valley (in the inter-war years?), without a river, with only trees, birds, a pony, a dog & other creatures - and the moody weather! - for company, other than a caring but distracted mother, a grandfather, a nervous housekeeper & an old gardener. So, naturally, he wanders free in the local woods & hills, seeking some inspiration for his dreams & idle thoughts. He finds his alter ego, his spirit, in the shape of a river boy, a sprite-like being, who leads him on an adventure that defies Nat's understanding but grips him with its miraculous happenings.
It is written in a literary style that had me in its clutches - part fantasy, part reality, part psychological...& well-beyond what I would have read, or had read to me, at primary school.
As a 'boy' myself, I naturally identified with Nat's childish wonder at what happens to his thoughts & feelings as he is whisked off into a dream-world, all based on the river, which once flowed through the valley (& still, in his imagination, does...an ancient source of myths & tales & dreams).
I even had to reach for my dictionary with words I had never encountered before!
Theresa Whistler?...well...she whistles! Why have I never heard of her? What happened after this entertaining, though ethereal, children's story was published? My imagination is in the river of life, a life that can be full of mysteries...& this relic of a bygone age of stories for boys was a reminder that so many writers disappear into a misty void of oblivion.
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