When it came to books, Eleanor never shied away from a chance to bring up one of her favorites, especially those that informed her childhood love of reading. In a 1987 piece written for The Children's Book Council's "Books Remembered" column, she mentioned Arthurian legend, fairy tales, James Jean's astronomy books, the animal stories of Rudyard Kipling and the Limberlost novels of Gene Stratton-Porter as her most beloved childhood books.
I present in this section a listing of those books and some additional others that captured young Eleanor's imagination.
Arthurian Legend (1138 - present)
Stories of the King (1910) by James Baldwin
The Sword in the Stone (1938) by T.H. White
It's unknown the exact edition from which Eleanor read her stories of King Arthur and his knights, though she described it as having a gray cover and black and white illustrations. It seems likely to have been Baldwin's volume, but Eleanor never said that directly. Her affection for Wales (most obviously in Time and Mr.Bass) comes from here, I'd guess, and Merlyn's "back sight and insight" in T.H. White's Arthur stories (which Eleanor seems to have admired but not regarded as definitive) are very similar to Mr. Bass's "second sight" as his combination of assured authority and personal oddity. He also claims to be one of the "old ones," which is quite similar to Mr. Bass's being an "ancient one."
Eleanor on the book: "'Here lies Arthur, once King and King to be.' His death meant the passing of goodness and courage and idealism, the breaking up of the ring, the scattering of the great knights: all of that gone, perhaps forever. I remember now the almost unutterable poignancy I felt - sadness mixed with longing - yet a sense of exaltation, of having touched something fine and powerful and strength-giving. For me, as a child, Arthur's story was equal to the adult experience of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy." - "The Unforgettable Glimpse" - The Green and Burning Tree, p.3
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Fairy Tales (1835-1872) by Hans Christian Andersen
Eleanor's deep admiration for the work of Hans Christian Andersen is evident not only in her many mentions of his stories, but also in her Andersenian unpublished children's novel Griselda's Great Ambition. As an aside, she specified more than once that her favorite Andersen illustrator was Arthur Rackham.
Eleanor on the stories: "I cannot say for certain that empathy was born in me when I first read "The Little Match Girl," but I do know that it made one of the deep impressions of my childhood." and "And is it possible that my love of the sea, my desire to be near it, to be able to look out over it, was born at the moment of my earliest reading of the first lines of "The Little Mermaid" and deepened by the poignancy and visual beauty of the tale that followed?" - "The Unforgettable Glimpse" - The Green and Burning Tree, p37,38
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A Girl of the Limberlost (1909) by Gene Stratton-Porter
A Girl of the Limberlost was one of a series of novels about Elnora Comstock and the titular swamp in Indiana. It's a Dickensian sort of story with lots of detail and extended dialogue. One of the main plot points is that Elnora's mother refuses to sell her land for oil extraction and logging. Eleanor's work seems at least in part inspired by the novel, especially in its portrayal of a strong relationship between an older person (in this case the Bird Woman) and a younger one (Elnora). The Bird Woman's moral philosophy also seems to have had a big impact on Eleanor's own: "Among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music, carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others." And one of her most valued writing tenets - that all good novels arise from their settings - seems to have been at least partially inspired by the novel. In her "Books Remembered" piece, Eleanor recalls having a "wholehearted response when I was ten and eleven to Gene Stratton-Porter's intensely felt sense of place."
Eleanor on the novel: "[Stratton-Porter's] descriptions [of Limberlost] must have brought place vividly before this child's eyes, because the lasting result has been to cause in me a fierce and bitter resentment when I read of the spoilation of our wilderness and national parks; of the clear-cutting of the nation's ancient forests or any irreplaceable habitat like the South American rain forests; of the ruin of Alaska and the Arctic, which are being littered with the ugly remains of our search for oil." - "The Seed and the Vision" - The Seed and the Vision, p. 21
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The Three Mulla-mulgars (1910) by Walter de la Mere
Eleanor held great admiration for Walter de le Mere's epic story of three brothers seeking their father's kingdom.
Eleanor on the novel: "Here is another created world, complete with landscape, inhabitants, language and beliefs." - "A Country of the Mind" - The Green and Burning Tree, p198
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Peacock Pie (1913) by Walter de la Mere
In Beyond Silence, Peacock Pie arises because Andrew's mother had read him poems from that book when he was younger; bookshop owner Dunstan recites "the song of shadows" in its entirety and says of de la Mere: "He gives you what you can't explain. He brings the whole scene before you in just those few words."
Eleanor on the poems: "...in Peacock Pie I find thirteen poems at least...that express to perfection de la Mare's sound of melancholy, loneliness and desertion." - The Fleas in the Cat's Fur - The Seed and the Vision p114
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Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame
Eleanor on the novel: "Julia began unpacking all the delicious things Hulda had put in the basket. She felt like Mole when he and Ratty went on their picnic by the river and Mole could hardly believe people really did this wort of blissful thing, because he himself had led such a dull sort of life by comparison. Daddy was reading The Wind in the Willows to her and Greg every evening for a half an hour before Julia went to bed, a book that told all about Mole and Toad and Ratty." - Julia's Magic, p. 21
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Just So Stories (1902) and The Jungle Books (1894) by Rudyard Kipling
Eleanor on the novels: "After all these years, when I repeat the names in The Jungle Books, something eerie still happens - I get the feathery thrill around the back of my neck and down my arms that in Scotland they call a "gru." "Bagheera," I whisper, "Shere Kahn, Mowgli, Darzee, the Bander-Log, Baloo...and the whole world of Kipling's jungle rises in my mind. The years fall away, and there's no distance at all between the time I was ten and now. How the man could write!" - "The Seed and the Vision" - The Seed and the Vision p20
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Beatrix Potter's animal stories (1902 - 1930)
Eleanor on the author: "Stern, yet tender, this double but not divided being was capable of caress in her minute and searching observations of the natural world, but, as well, of completely unsentimentalized portrayals of foxes and rats scheming for dinners of ducks and kittens. For Beatrix Potter...had an unerring sense of audience.. And for them she exerted every discipline of artistry at her command..." - "The Sense of Audience", The Green and Burning Tree
When Eleanor Cameron became involved in criticism of children's literature, she endlessly championed books that she felt met her exacting set of criteria. These were books written, for the most part, by her contemporaries, but that spoke to her strongly as if she were a child. To her, they were books that achieved the ideal of the art form. Some special favorites are discussed in detail at the top, followed by a list of other well-regarded books below.
Green Knowe series by Lucy Boston
The Children of Green Knowe (1954)
The Chimneys of Green Knowe (1958)
A River at Green Knowe (1959)
A Stranger at Green Knowe (1961)
An Enemy at Green Knowe (1964)
The Stones at Green Knowe (1976)
The books that Eleanor championed more than any others were Lucy Boston's Green Knowe series. The books seem to have cast a long shadow over Eleanor's own work, with elements showing up in A Spell is Cast and The Court of the Stone Children. In the late sixties, Eleanor began corresponding with Lucy Boston and eventually visited the Boston's home, the actual Green Knowe, The Manor at Hemingford Grey in Cambridgeshire, England.
Eleanor on the books: "Lucy Boston is a writer whose unique abode is the expression of an idea which pervades the whole body of her work, and it is one which, when at last it became her home, released her at the age of sixty unto the period of her highest development as an artist." - A Country of the Mind - The Seed and the Vision p186
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The Return of the Twelves (1962) by Pauline Clarke
Eleanor on the novel: "I accept my trouble (at the end) with Pauline Clarke's The Return of the Twelves but am still devoted to it. There are works that, despite whatever small or large faults they may have, are accepted by their admirers with unfailing warmth, even love, because the books nevertheless give them lasting pleasure." - "On Criticism, Awards, and Peaches" - The Seed and the Vision, p221
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Gone-Away Lake (1957) by Elizabeth Enright
Eleanor was a great admirer of Elizabeth Enright, both her work for children and adults. Eleanor found much to like about Enright's style, calling it "precise, ironic, and witty" with "apt and original metaphors." But her favorite was Gone-Away Lake, a book that seems to have partly inspired the tone and structure of The Mysterious Christmas Shell and A Spell is Cast. In fact, Eleanor even employed Gone-Away Lake's illustrators, Joe and Beth Krush, for those two novels.
Eleanor on the novel: "[Enright] has called up a shimmer of summer days, rich with humor and beauty, in a place that surely any child who dreams of wandering free through woods and country and swamp would deem as near perfection as it attainable on earth." - "The Dearest Freshness Deep Down Things" - The Green and Burning Tree, p267
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The novels of Jane Gardam
A Few Fair Days (1971)
A Long Way From Verona (1971)
The Summer After the Funeral (1973)
Bligewater (1977)
The Hollow Land (1981)
Crusoe's Daughter (1985)
Eleanor on Gardam: "You hadn't before this read Jane Gardam???!!! Oh, she's one of my great favorites, a truly tremendously gifted person writing for the young - sophisticated, in a way, or should I say an elegant professional, fully in control of her medium so that adults who love the assured writer could be entranced by anything she writes..."
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The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula Le Guin
A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
The Tombs of Attuan (1971)
The Farthest Shore (1972)
Tehanu (1990)
The Other Wind (2001)
Another book that Eleanor never tired of praising was Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, even writing a full essay of appreciation for the Horn Book ("High Fantasy: A Wizard of Earthsea", 1971). She admired the sequels to a somewhat lesser degree. As with Lucy Boston, her vocal admiration led to a correspondence and friendship with the author.
Eleanor on A Wizard of Earthsea: "For sheer artistry of writing and power of imagination, I find it marvelous - I was engrossed from beginning to end."
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The Borrowers series by Mary Norton
The Borrowers (1952)
The Borrowers Afield (1955)
The Borrows Afloat (1959)
The Borrows Aloft (1961)
The Borrowers Avenged (1982)
The Borrowers was the last book Eleanor read aloud to her mother before she died. Like Gone-Away Lake, the books were illustrated by Joe and Beth Krush, who would later do four novels with Eleanor.
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Tom's Midnight Garden (1958) by Philipa Pearce
Though she never defined it in such words, this may have been the Eleanor's single most beloved time fantasy. The Court of the Stone Children certainly owes a spiritual and structural debt to this book.
Eleanor on the novel: "In a book such as this...one sees the fertile and perceiving mind of the writer joyously at work, unafraid of convolutions, ready to explore to the end every possibility opened up by each new pattern of circumstance." - "The Green and Burning Tree" - The Green and Burning Tree p 121,122
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Charlotte's Web (1952) by E.B. White
Eleanor on the novel: "The artistry of the book lies not at all in the use of unusual words but, as in all of Mr. White's prose for adults and children alike, in the way he combines words, creates intimations, such as this one concerning gullible humanity and the powers of promotion: "The news spread. People who had journeyed to see Wilbur when he was 'some pig' came back again to see him now that he was 'terrific!'" -"Dimensions of Amazement" - The Green and Burning Tree p242
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If one were to list every single book Eleanor mentioned favorably in an essay, the number would stretch easily into the hundreds. So I have only included books that were mentioned more than once and/or specifically included in her "A Branch of the Tree" bibliography. Eleanor seemed reluctant to create a definitive list of great children's literature, so regard this instead as a very good place to start.
Watership Down (1972) by Richard Adams
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1962) by Joan Aiken
The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha (1978) by Lloyd Alexander
The Devil's Storybook (1974) by Natalie Babbitt
A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich (1973) by Alice Childress
Where the Lilies Bloom (1969) by Vera and Bill Cleavers
The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Carlo Collodi
Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe
Eva (1988) by Peter Dickinson
Knight's Castle (1956) by Edward Eager
The Witch Family (1960) by Eleanor Estes
By the Great Horn Spoon! (1963) by Sid Fleischman
The Slave Dancer (1973) by Paula Fox
How Many Miles to Babylon (1967) by Paula Fox
Tales from Grimm (1936) by Wanda Gag
More Tales from Grimm (1947) by Wanda Gag
The Ghost Downstairs (1972) by Leon Garfield
Elider (1965) by Alan Garner
The Doll's House (1947) by Rumer Godden
The Complete Peterkin Papers (1880) by Lucretia P. Hale
The Planet of Junior Brown (1971) by Virginia Hamilton
Across Five Aprils (1965) by Irene Hunt
The Kelpie's Pearls (1964) by Mollie Hunter
The Sound of Chariots (1972) by Mollie Hunter
Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
Moominpappa at Sea (1965) by Tove Jansson
The Phantom Tollbooth (1961) by Norton Juster
The Gammage Cup (1959) by Carol Kendall
Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling
A Separate Peace (1959) by John Knowles
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973) by Penelope Lively
The House in Norham Gardens (1974) by Penelope Lively
The Call of the Wild (1903) by Jack London
At the Back of the North Wind (1871) by George MacDonald
The Princess and the Goblin (1872) by George MacDonald
Sarah, Plain and Tall (1985) by Patricia MacLachlan
Earthfasts (1966) by William Mayne
A Game of Dark (1971) by William Mayne
The Five Children and It (1902) by E. Nesbit
The Magic City (1910) by E. Nesbit
Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) by Scott O'Dell
The Great Gilly Hopkins (1978) by Katherine Paterson
A Pattern of Roses (1972) by K.N. Peyton
A Gathering of Gargoyles (1985) by Meredith Ann Pierce
The Sherwood Ring (1958) by Elizabeth Marie Pope
The Yearling (1938) by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger
Fog Magic (1944) by Julia Sauer
Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott
The Egypt Game (1967) by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Bronze Bow (1962) by Elizabeth George Speare
Dominic (1972) by William Steig
The Red Pony (1933) by John Steinbeck
The Pearl (1947) by John Steinbeck
Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson
Kidnapped (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976) by Mildred D. Taylor
Call the Darkness Down (1984) by Dixie Tenny
The Hobbit (1937) by J.R.R. Tolkien
"Farmer Giles of Ham" (1949) by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954) by J.R.R. Tolkien
Mary Poppins (1934) by P.L. Travers
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain
A Traveler in Time (1939) by Alison Uttley
Fireweed (1969) by Jill Paton Walsh
Unleaving (1977) by Jill Paton Walsh
Gaffer Samson's Luck (1984) by Jill Paton Walsh
A Knowledge of Angels (1994) by Jill Paton Walsh
The Time Machine (1895) by H.G. Wells
Little House books (1932 - 1943) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Recommended Reading on Children's Literature
(originally listed in "A Branch of the Tree" recorded essay for Prelude #4)
Aspects of Alice: Lewis Carroll's Dreamchild as Seen Through the Critics' Looking-Glasses. Robert Phillips, ed., Vanguard 1971
Books, Children, and Men by Paul Hazard, The Horn Book, 1960.
Children and Literature: Views and Reviews. Virginia Haviland, ed. Scott, Foresman, 1973.
Children's Literature Lectures, Library of Congress. Library of Congress, 1979.
Crosscurrents of Criticism: Horn Book Essays, 1968-1977. Paul Heins, ed. The Horn Book. 1977.
The Educated Imagination by Northrup Frye. Indiana University Press. 1964.
Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E.B.White by Roger Sale. Harvard University Press. 1978.
Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories by C.S.Lewis. Harcourt. 1966.
Summoned by Books: Essays and Speeches by Frances Clarke Sayers. Viking. 1965.
Talent is Not Enough: Mollie Hunter on Writing for Children by Mollie Hunter. Harper. 1976.
The Thorny Paradise: Writers on Writing for Children. Edward Blishen, ed. Kestrel Books. 1975.
The Unreluctant Years: A Critical Approach to Children's Literature by Lillian H. Smith. Viking. 1953.
Favorite Adult Writers and Books
Colette
David Daiches
Alfred Kazin
Ursula Le Guin
Barbara Pym
Herbert Read
Edmund Wilson
Virginia Woolf
Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner (1983)
Civilisation (1969) by Kenneth Clark
The Summer Book (1972) by Tove Jansson
To Kill a Mockingbird (1961) by Harper Lee
Arctic Dreams (1968) by Barry Lopez
Housekeeping (1980) by Marilynne Robinson
Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner (1983)
Black Lamb and Gray Falcon (1941) by Rebecca West