Books for uncertain times?

The question has been raised with me in more than one place. Do we need something new and different or do we need something comforting? Do we want an exciting novel by a favourite author or do we want to reread something from the past? It would be interesting to discover what people are borrowing from the library right now. I suspect most of us go back to something we have read before.

Amanda Craig suggested "Lord of the Rings" for her comfort read on Twitter but I wondered what my childhood self might have read. My thoughts turned first to "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" by Judith Kerr.  It's a partly autobiographical book and all the more powerful because of it. That sentence at the end of the first chapter! "Papa had gone." From then on the reader is caught up in all the uncertainties and anxieties of being a refugee. Would I have wanted to reread that? I don't know. It is an unsettling book.

In my thoughts moved on to "The Ark" by Margot Benary. There is Mother, who has lost one child to the war, trying to hold the family together while not knowing where their father is - or even if he is still alive. They are not really welcome in the house to which they have been assigned. There is still severe rationing - they need to divide the potatoes up so that they last right through the allotted time. They are always hungry and not just for food but for knowledge. Yes, the book ends well enough. Father returns but the happiness is tempered by the child who has been lost and the manner in which Father learns of it. Would I have wanted to reread that?

And then Michelle Magorian's "Goodnight Mr Tom"? No I could not have reread that. It is much too painful. The relationship between the abused child and the disagreeable old man is a wonderful exploration of learning to trust one another but the events are harrowing. Yes, it is a very good book but it is also very emotionally confronting.

There is "Carrie's War" by Nina Bawden. I may have been able to reread that because it does have some lighter moments. I once had the privilege of meeting the author and, later, hearing her talk about it.  The book was based on her own experiences and that surely has to be one reason why the book sounds so authentic. Carrie and Nick are the sort of characters you feel you might meet in the street. You get more than a glimpse of life in the Welsh valleys too.

Jill Paton Walsh was criticised for writing both "The Dolphin Crossing" and "Fireweed".  In my short time working as a school librarian The Dolphin Crossing was considered to be highly controversial. Parental permission had to be sought to read it. I wonder what children would make of it now. I don't think C... ever read it although it was there on the shelves. I remember Nina Bawden saying that Jill Paton Walsh didn't have the necessary experience to write the book...and perhaps she was right. It hasn't lasted the way Carrie's War has lasted.

"Visitors from London" by Kitty Barne was published early in WWII. It deals with the early evacuations from London - before the war had really begun. It won the Carnegie Medal but it would be considered "old fashioned" by a child now, indeed would have been for a very long time. I thought it was a bit like that when I first read it although I think I liked it well enough. Recently I had cause to look at it again when reading an essay by a student and the thing that struck me most is something I am sure I missed as a child. It is the issue of  domestic violence - the way in which the mother of the evacuee family does not want to return to London and the abusive relationship. Perhaps we need to give more attention to the book?

Ann Holm's "I am David" has one of the best conclusions to a children's book ever. The simple, "Madam, I am David" is all that is needed. We are left to hope that, after his journey across Europe, David has actually found his mother.  We also know that, even if he has, it is not going to be easy for either of them. He has grown a great deal during the journey but he will never really be free of his time in the labour camp.  There is just a little bit of hope there but would I want to read it?

I know there will be other books, good books, I have missed but there is one last book I must mention. It is "The Silver Sword" by Ian Serraillier, a book still in print and still being read in schools - and rightly so. It is an adventure story, a growing up story, a facing adversity story. Jan is always going to be a prickly individual. The ending isn't all sweetness and light either. Ruth, so strong for so long, finally needs the support she has been giving the others - we are confronted with the mental health realities of surviving such a war. 

I think I would look for comfort elsewhere - fantasy or funny or both.