Dogs in Books

Polly the puppy is currently ruling my life during every waking minute of hers. Things will change week by week, but at the moment she sleeps all night (what a good dog!) and wakes, whining, just before 7am. This is my cue to jump out of bed and take her into the garden in my pyjamas, where she darts around, nose into everything, small tail wagging furiously. Then it’s all go for the next two hours – chewing, galloping about with squeaky toys, leaping at our knees with flattened ears, beseeching eyes and scrabbling paws, and staring transfixed at the cats – one of which saunters past with a coquettish glance, while the other bushes out her fur and vanishes.

The rest of the day follows a two-hours-off/two-hours-on pattern of mad play followed by utterly flopped-out sleep. I try to do all my other tasks while she’s asleep. And you can bet she’s waking up, fresh for more fun, just before I’m quite ready. Boy, do I sleep well at night.

Anyway, in honour of Polly, I thought I would write today about dogs in books.

Dogs in books are a Good Thing. I always try to have a dog or two in each of mine. In my first book ‘Troll Fell’ there are three, all quite different: Peer’s faithful little brown mongrel Loki, his uncle’s unpleasant mastiff Grendel, and steady old Alf, the sheepdog at Hilde’s farm. And in my fourth book ‘Dark Angels’ (‘The Shadow Hunt’) there is the whole pack of Lord Hugo’s hounds, including the elegant white greyhound Argos. Country people have always had lots of dogs, and in past centuries most people were country people, so to have a lot of dogs in the books makes perfect sense.

Historical fiction and dogs make me think immediately of Rosemary Sutcliff, whose books I devoured as a child. Sutcliff – who must easily win the title of Britain’s most loved writer of junior historical fiction – loved dogs, and there is a noble dog in many of her books - 'Whitethroat' in 'Warrior Scarlet', 'Argos' in 'Brother Dusty Feet' - but for me the most iconic is ‘Dog’ (in ‘Dawn Wind’, 1961, illustration by Charles Keeping), the young war-hound that the boy Owain finds by moonlight on the ruins of the battlefield:

…it was something alive in the cold echoing emptiness of a dead world. It stood with one paw raised, looking at him, and Owain called, hoarsely, with stiff lips and aching throat: ‘Dog! Hai! Dog!’ … [It] came, slowly and uncertainly… once it stopped altogether; then it finished at the run and next instant was trembling against his legs.
He was a young dog; the beautiful creamy hair of his breast-patch was stained and draggled, and his muzzle bloody in the moonlight… ‘Dog, aiee, dog, we are alone then. There’s no one else. We will go together, you and I.’

The brilliance of the writing is to show us, in the lonely and innocent terror of the dog and what he has been made to do, the full dreadfulness of war.

Most children love dogs and enjoy reading about them. Enid Blyton used the combination of ‘four children and a dog’ again and again. ‘The Famous Five’ would not be five without Timmy the dog, who is big enough to offer some protection and even to be of use to the plot – many’s the time Timmy carries that essential scribbled note (‘Help! Locked in the old castle! Our tutor is a spy: call Scotland Yard!’) attached to his collar. ‘The Secret Seven’ had a dog called Scamper, I think, and there’s a black spaniel in the ‘Barney’ books, and so on.

It used not to be unusual for even quite young children to be let out alone with a doggy companion. In the 1960’s my brother and I were allowed to roam about on our own on the moors or streets of our country town, so long as we took the dog with us. Stories about children with dogs were so common that many children must have believed ownership of a dog was some kind of right. But what about children who couldn’t have dogs? In Philippa Pearce’s 1962 classic ‘A Dog So Small’ (illustrated by Anthony Maitland), the child hero Ben longs for a dog, but lives in a London back street with no room for one. His grandfather promises him a dog for his birthday, but the promise can’t be kept:


…[Ben] cut the string around the parcel and then unfolded the wrapping paper.
They had sent him a picture instead of a dog.

And then he realised that they had sent him a dog after all. He almost hated them for it. His dog was worked in woollen cross-stitch, and framed and glazed as a little picture. There was a letter which explained: ‘Dear Ben, Your grandpa and I send you hearty good wishes for your birthday. We know you would like a dog, so here is one…’
…Ben said nothing, because he could not.

To compensate, Ben begins to fantasise about a dog of his own – ‘a dog so small you could see it only with your eyes shut’. If by some chance you haven’t read this book, I won’t spoil it for you by telling you the ending, only that it’s one of the most touching stories ever about longing, and the dangers of wish fulfilment, and of coming to terms with reality.

Not all dogs in children’s fiction are noble characters. Witness the memorably vain and selfish King Charles spaniel Wiggins, the pet of Maria in Elizabeth Goudge’s ‘The Little White Horse’:

It was the belief of Maria and Miss Heliotrope that he loved them devotedly because he always kept close at their heels, wagged his tail politely when spoken to, and even kissed them upon occasion. But all this Wiggins did not from affection but because he thought it good policy... The only parts of Wiggins that were not cream coloured were his long silky ears and the patches over his eyes. These were the loveliest possible shade of chestnut brown. His eyes were brown too, and of a liquid melting tenderness that won all hearts; the owners of the said hearts being quite unaware that Wiggins’s tenderness was all for himself, not for them.

Of course this is funny, and we forgive Wiggins just as Maria does, because he fulfils a comedic function that is another important role for dogs in books and in life. Young children often regard a dog as a clownish, non-threatening little brother or sister – reassuringly clumsier and more foolish than themselves. Yet, like clowns, dogs can get away with ‘naughty’ activities a child secretly enjoys. Loki, in ‘Troll Fell’, can express rebellion against Peer’s bullying Uncle Baldur by simply being himself – an irrepressible, lively little dog.

But now I’m wondering. Have there been many dogs in recent books for children? The only one I can think of, off-hand, is Todd’s dog Manchee in Patrick Ness’s ‘The Knife of Never Letting Go’ – a wonderful character in a wonderful book, though to be read with a large box of tissues handy, if you are tender-hearted. Are there many others? And if not, why not, and does it reflect the fact that children nowadays don’t get to roam around on their own with their dogs?


Whoops, Polly’s waking up. Got to go!

An Australian Perspective - Kate Forsyth talks about writing fantasy

You're an Australian writer, so why were you drawn to write a book set mainly in Scotland and referring to so much Scottish history and folklore?

Even though my family has lived in Australia for generations, it is the old stories of Scotland and the UK that I was brought up on. My great-great-grandmother was born in Scotland and emigrated to Australia as a young girl. She had not wanted to come, and that might explain why she looked backwards to her past so much. She was by all accounts a grand storyteller, and used to tell her children lots of stories about Scottish ghosts and fairies and giants, and all about Scottish history. Her children told her children, and they told me (the novel is dedicated to my grandmother and great-aunts, who were the ones who began my lifelong fascination with Scotland). I've always loved history and fairytale, and so I loved listening to their stories. And then they began to give me books and stories to read, about Mary, Queen of Scots or Bonnie Prince Charlie. I have a wonderful old book on my shelf called 'In Search of Scotland' that my great-aunt Clarice gave to me when I was about 11, filled with old black-and-white photos and old maps and bits of history and poems and fairytales. I loved it.

I can't imagine 'The Puzzle Ring' being set in any other country but Scotland. It seemed very right to me that I should use all the old tales my grandmother told me in this way. I have set one of my books in Australia,and in the same way I can't imagine it being set anywhere else. (That book is called 'Full Fathom Five' and can only be bought in Australia or from an Australian internet bookstore like www.fishpond.com ).


What, for you, is the attraction of writing fantasy?

There are a number of things that draw me to writing fantasy. Firstly, I love to read books that are filled with magic and adventure and mystery and suspense, and I naturally want to write what I love to read. Secondly,fantasy draws its inspiration from the deep well of history, mythology and fairytale, and they have always been my great passions, ever since I was a young child. My great-aunts had a wonderful set of old children's encyclopedias called 'The World of Wonder - 10,000 Things A Child Should Know.' I used to pore over them as a child, and my favourite chapters were always the ones entitled 'Romance of British History'.  I still have those old books - my Aunty Gwen gave them to me when I was about 12 since I loved them so much (you can probably tell from this that I spent a great deal of time at my great-aunts - that's because my mother worked and we were sent to stay there most school holidays).

And finally, I love writing fantasy because it is a literature of transcendence. Jane Yolen wrote: 'For adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power that, in order to be tamed, have been excised from our adult vocabularies .. These words are: Good. Evil. Courage. Honour. Truth. Hate. Love. They are a litany, a charm so filled with power we hardly dare say them. Yet with these magical words, anything is possible: the transformation of human into beast, dead into living, night into day, year now into year then or year 3000. They are the stuff of which our visions are woven, the warp and weft of our crafted dreams.' I love this quotation because it expresses something I feel very deeply and passionately - the power of words and stories, and the importance of opening our minds and imagination up and outwards. To me fantasy fiction does this better than any other kind of art.


A number of American fantasy writers have taken faeries derived from European folklore and set up them up very successfully in New York or Chicago - the 'urban faeries'. Is there a comparable modern Australian fantasy genre?

Oh yes. Fantasy fiction in Australia is as diverse as anywhere else, though on a much smaller scale. It's not always European folklore, either. Kylie Chang, an Australian author, has done a brilliant series of urban fantasy novels based on the premise that the ancient Chinese gods are alive and living in the modern world. And Kim Wilkins, one of my all-time favourite writers, writes amazing books which parallel the stories of a contemporary heroine with a dark and suspenseful story set in the past. Not all of them are set in Australia - my favourite, 'Ruin of Angels' parallels the story of an Australian girl living in London with the story of one of Milton's daughters. Another, 'The Autumn Castle' draws upon German fairytales.

Who are your favourite Australian fantasy writers?

I just love Kim Wilkins, Juliet Marillier, Garth Nix, Lian Hearn, Pamela Freeman, Alison Croggon - they are writing world-class fantasy and forging a place for themselves on the international stage.

So which writers have been your inspiration?

I read so much and love the work of so many writers this is difficult for me to answer. I guess the writers I read when I was between 9 and 13 are the ones who influenced me the most. These would be Susan Cooper, Ursula le Guin and the Wizard of Earthsea, Elizabeth Goudge, Joan Aiken, Lucy Boston, Eleanor Farjeon, Enid Blyton, Nicholas Stuart Grey, Lloyd Alexander - so many wonderful writers. I have on my website a page dedicated to my favourite writers - there are more than a hundred there! Adult writers whose work I love include Tracey Chevalier, Joanne Harris, Geraldine Brooks, Isabel Allende and other writers of historical fiction, plus fantasy writers like Susanna Clarke, Sarah Zettel and Robin Hobb.


Patricia Wrightson wrote fantasies based on Native Australian legends, which I read and loved as a child, but I've heard that more recent Australian writers of European descent are wary of accusations of cultural appropriation. Would you ever consider writing a fantasy set in Australia, and if you did, would you include any Native Australian elements?

I love Patricia Wrightson! I have her autograph. When I was 11 I won a writing competition and the prize was to go the Children's Book Council of Austalia lunch to celebrate the 1978 Book of the Year Awards. I was privileged enough to sit next to Patricia Wrightson, which struck me dumb as she was one of my favourite authors. I remember being very disappointed when they brought out my lunch, giving me a very small serve of chicken nuggets and chips, when all the adults were eating steak and baked potato and salad which I would've much preferred. Patricia Wrightson must have seen my disappointed face because she told me they had given her far too much food, and would I mind helping her finish her meal as she didn't wish to be rude. She then heaped my plate with half of her serving, much to my delight. She chatted to me very kindly all through the meal, and then gave me her autograph which I still treasure.

Patricia Wrightson won the 1978 Book of the Year Award for 'The Ice Is Coming', the first in her Wirrun trilogy which tells the epic journey of an Aboriginal boy in search of an ancient earth-spirit who can help discover why the land is changing. Patricia Wrightson had also drawn upon Aboriginal myth and folklore for earlier books such as 'The Nargun and the Stars' and 'An Older Kind of Magic', but the Wirrun trilogy is the first time that her hero was Aboriginal himself, and it was far grander in scale and purpose.

In 1986 she became the only Australian to ever be awarded the Hans Christian Anderson Award for Writing, sometimes called 'the Little Nobel' because of its high international regard.

In 1989, she published 'Baylet', her last book to drawn upon what she called 'the folk-spirits of the Australian Dreamtime'. I was studying children's literature at Macquarie University at the time, and remember passionate and angry discussions about cultural appropriation and the problem of the ownership of stories. There was great controversy in academic circles about Patricia Wrightson's use of Aboriginal motifs, despite her careful research and what I think was great sensitivity. All of her books were dropped from school reading lists and university courses all over Australia. She went from being our most celebrated children's author to being shunned. She wrote very little else, And all of her books are now out-of-print (I collect them, so my children have a chance to read them!)

Since I was at university at the time, and a passionate advocate of her work, and desperately wanting to be a writer, the controversy had a deep impact on me. At the time I was writing the novel that was later published as 'Full Fathom Five'. It had an Aboriginal character in it and drew upon Aboriginal mythology. I was not able to get it published, even though it was longlisted for the Vogel Award twice (a prestigious prize for young unpublished authors in Australia). Some years later I re-wrote it completely, drawing upon Shakespeare and the 'Little Mermaid' fairytale instead, and it was accepted for publication. The only problem my editor had with the manuscript was I had retained some of the use of Aboriginal mythology. They were very concerned about that, and it was only when I wrote to the Aboriginal Centre in that area and was given permission to use the Dreamtime story in question that they allowed me to retain it.

So, yes, we are very aware in Australia of the dangers of cultural appropriation, and in being careful not to trespass lightly on a mythology that has deep significance to the culture of Australian Aborigines. That said, I have an idea for a story set in Sydney which would draw upon the local history and culture of the local Gayamaygal people. I'm sure I shall write it one day.


Fantasy is sometimes accused of being a form of escapism. How would you respond? 

Why is escapism a perjorative? I think all the best works of art are those that life you out of your own world for a while, and let you travel in other times, in other places, in other people's shoes. I think the most important reason to read at all is for pleasure. And of all forms of fiction, fantasy is the one most likely to engage with the deep ontological questions of humanity, such as the nature of good and evil, fate and self-will. But because these big subjects are dealt with through metaphor and symbol and archetype, because they are wrapped up in all the glamour of a magical adventure story, they work at a deeper, more subversive level. As Philip Pullman has said 'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but 'Once upon a time' lasts forever.


Many of the Scottish landscapes and journeys in The Puzzle Ring are lovingly described. Did you visit Scotland to research your book? 

I did indeed. I have longed to go to Scotland all my life, and my husband says I wrote 'The Puzzle Ring' just to ahve an excuse to go there! It was just as wild and mysterious as I had ever imagined. We stayed in a real 14th century castle near Gatehouse of Fleet, a place where John Knox himself had once stayed. Then we had four nights in a cottage on the shores of Loch Lomond, in the grounds of Arden House which is a grand old Scottish baronial mansion that helped me visualise what Wintersloe Castle might have looked like... and the kids and I all wished we could live there!

We spent the days driving round Scotland going to all the places that appear in The Puzzle Ring - the fairy mountain Schiehallion; the whirlpool known as the Hag's Washtub; and the village of Fortingall where a five-thousand-year-old yew tree grows. We drove over the Rannoch Moor to Glencoe, a place that looks as if it has not changed in a thousand years, and along the sea road to the Isle of Skye, where we occasionally saw the most extraordinary mountain crags looming out of the mist and rain. We stayed in a fantastic old house with antlers and tiger heads on the floor, and an elephant's foot being used as an umbrella stand in the front hall. You can be sure that'll crop up in a story one day!

Three days staying in an old monastery on the shores of Loch Ness was definitely a highlight of the trip, particularly as the rain cleared and we had some beautiful warm, spring sunshine. We went monster-hunting, and ate some great Scottish cuisine in the local pubs, and then headed to Edinburghfor a few more days.

I loved Edinburgh! I think it's one of my favourite cities in the world. One of the highlights was the Beltane celebrations on Calton Hill. We listened to a wonderful Scottish storyteller who told us that Calton Hill was once believed to be a gateway to fairyland. This solved a massive problem I had with the plot of 'The Puzzle Ring' and so it turned into one of the best nights we had in Scotland (though we still cannot get over all the mad Celts with their bare arms and bare legs in the freezing cold of a Scottish evening).


Why do you write for children?

I write for all age groups. I have picture books, books for early readers and independent readers, books for young adults and adults. You can read me from birth to death. To me, each story has its own shape and structure, and its own audience. I knew before I wrote a single word of 'The Puzzle Ring' that I was writing for children aged 10, 11 and 12. It demanded to be a children's book. The story I am writing now could be nothing else but for teenagers aged 13 and above. I am planning to write a retelling of the Rapunzel story and I know, without a doubt, that it is a novel for adults. I don't know how I know this, I just do. I think what I'm doing is writing for all the different ages and stages of myself. When I was a child, I desperately wanted to write the sort of books I so loved to read, books written for children. And then I grew to be an adult, and I wanted to write for the person I was as a grown-up. I do have favourite audiences. I love writing for this 10+ age group the most, I think because they still have a sense of wonder but are old enough to have a more sophisticated story with more sophisticated language. I love writing for adults too, I love being able to go a little deeper and a little darker.

Kate's blog tour continues tomorrow at bookworminginthe21stcentury

Magical Rooms

A few years ago I used to do a lot of oral storytelling. You can’t tell a story well unless you love it, and one of my absolute favourites is ‘Mr Fox’, the English version of ‘Bluebeard’. It’s far superior to Bluebeard, in my opinion, and its heroine, Lady Mary, is feisty and clever. But of course, one of the high points of the story is when she opens the little door decorated with the legend: Be bold, be bold, but not too bold/Lest that thy heart’s blood should run cold - and discovers the place where Mr Fox hangs up his victims: the well known Bloody Chamber.

Bruno Bettelheim, in 'The Uses of Enchantment', discusses the secret or forbidden rooms in fairytales very much in Freudian terms: “‘Bluebeard’ is a story about the dangerous propensities of sex, about its strange secrets and close connection with violent and destructive emotions.” The blood upon the key, which betrays to Bluebeard that his wife has entered the forbidden chamber, leaves little doubt that Bettelheim is right in this instance – though that motif is missing from Mr Fox, which is a story about a clever girl coming close to extreme danger but turning the tables on the one who threatens her.

Other rooms in traditional fairytales, such as the Sleeping Beauty’s chamber, or Rapunzel’s tower, can also be seen in Freudian terms as symbolizing unawakened virginity. (Although I’m uncomfortable with the extreme passivity of the image: and I do think it is dangerous to take a Freudian interpretation as an explanation. An individual fairy tale is much more than any particular common denominator. )

I was corresponding with the Australian fantasy YA author Kate Forsyth recently (look out for a review and interview with her on this blog later in the month) and the subject came up of magical rooms in children’s and YA fiction. And I started to think about how very different they often are from the Bloody Chamber or the Ivory Tower. The room, in children’s fiction, is a place of magical refuge, yet full of possibility.

A room of one’s own. Many children do not have one. They share with brothers or sisters. They lead lives ruled by adults. A room of one’s own, for a child, is a place where it can be in control. It’s also a place to start out from: the firm base of safety from which a child can explore the world. Rooms in children’s or young adult fiction, therefore, often reflect the desirable qualities of a perfect personal space.

Elizabeth Goudge was good at this. Maria, heroine of ‘The Little White Horse’, coming to the magic and mystery of Moonacre Manor, is provided with a bedroom in a tower with a door too small for an adult to get through. The room has three windows, one with a window seat, a ‘silvery oak floor’, and a four-poster bed ‘hung with pale blue silk curtains embroidered with silver stars’. And ‘the fireplace was the tiniest she had ever seen,’ but big enough for ‘the fire of pine cones and applewood that burned in it… It was the room Maria would have designed for herself if she had had the knowledge and the skill.’ From such a base Maria can with confidence launch her campaign against the men of the sinister Black Castle in the pine wood.

In ‘Linnets and Valerians’, perhaps Goudge’s masterpiece, the quieter heroine Nan is given a parlour of her own by her austere Uncle Ambrose. It opens off a dark passage, but then: ‘The room inside was a small panelled parlour. There was a bright wood fire burning in the basket grate, and on the mantelpiece above were a china shepherd and shepherdess and two china sheep. Over the mantelpiece was a round mirror in a gilt frame… Nan sat down in the little armchair and folded her hands in her lap… It was quiet in here, the noises of the house shut away, the sound of the wind and rain seeming only to intensify the indoor silence. The light of the flames was reflected in the panelling, and the burning logs smelt sweet.’ And yet, in the heart of this paradise a snake lurks: the discovery, in a cupboard, of an old notebook written by the witch Emma Cobley. ‘Nan sat down in the armchair with shaking knees, but nevertheless she opened the book and began to read.’

In each case, the rooms – though so utterly desirable – contain clues and hints of the past, of the passage of other people’s lives, and of mysteries which must be investigated.

In a similar way when Garth Nix’s Sabriel comes for the first time to the house of the Abhorsen, escaping terrifiying dangers, it is a place of refuge: ‘The gate swung open, pitching her on to a paved courtyard, the bricks ancient, their redness the colour of dusty apples. The path wound up to…a cheerful sky-blue door, bright against whitewashed stone.’ And she wakes later, ‘to soft candlelight, the warmth of a feather bed…A fire burned briskly in a red-brick fireplace, and wood-panelled walls gleamed with the dark mystery of well-polished mahogany. A blue-papered ceiling with silver stars dusted across it, faced her newly opened eyes.’ This is a place in which Sabriel cannot stay, but which belongs to her: it will strengthen her even though she must leave it. It’s also a place in which she will learn more about her family, her past.

It’s not a fantasy, but Betsy Byars’ ‘The Cartoonist’ is also about the necessity for a child to have some personal space and the strength that be derived from it. The only place in Alfie’s crowded house where he can be himself is in his attic, where he expresses himself by drawing the cartoons that are his life-blood. So long as he has his attic, he can cope with the demands of his noisy, feckless family: ‘The only thing Alfie liked about the house was the attic. That was his. He had put an old chair and a card-table up there, and he had a lamp with an extension cord that went down into the living room. Nobody ever went up there but Alfie. Once his sister, Alma, had started up the ladder, but he had said, “No, I don’t want anybody up there…I want it to be mine.”’ When the family decide over his head that his older brother can have the attic, Alfie’s entire personal existence feels threatened. He barricades himself in.

Magical rooms, magical personal spaces, abound in children’s fiction. In Margery Sharp’s ‘The Rescuers’, I was charmed as a child by the cosy home the mice build in the heart of The Black Castle whilst evading the dreadful cat Mameluke and trying to rescue the imprisoned Poet. The hole becomes: ‘a commodious apartment… Gay chewing gum wrappers papered the walls, while upon the floor used postage stamps, nibbled off envelopes in the Head Jailer’s wastebasket, formed a homely but not unsuitable patchwork carpet. Miss Bianca with her own hands fashioned several flower-pieces – so essential to gracious living – dyed pink or blue with red or blue-black ink’. And there’s the necessary fire, of course – ‘a fire of cedarwood’ made from cigar boxes.

I remember wishing I, like Heidi, could have a bedroom up a ladder in a hay-loft, where Heidi sleeps ‘as soundly and well as if she had been in the loveliest bed of some royal princess’. And to this bedroom she returns later in the book with her rich, lame friend Klara: ‘They all stood round Heidi’s beautifully made hay bed…drawing deep breaths of the spicy fragrance of the new hay. Klara was perfectly charmed with Heidi’s sleeping place. “Oh Heidi! From your bed you can look straight out into the sky, and you can hear the fir trees roar outside. Oh I have never seen such a jolly, pleasant sleeping room before.”’ Of course, this mountain home will give strength to Klara and heal her.

And isn’t part of the charm in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s ‘A Little Princess’ the way in which Sara’s attic room is transformed, first by the power of her imagination and then by a reality which she calls ‘the magic’, from a cold, inimical space into a place which comforts and sustains both body and soul? ‘“Supposing there was a bright fire in the grate, with lots of little dancing flames,’ she murmured. ‘Suppose there was a comfortable chair before it – and suppose there was a small table nearby with a little hot – hot supper on it. And suppose”- as she drew the thin coverings over her – “suppose this was a beautiful soft bed, with fleecy blankets and large downy pillows. Suppose – suppose –’ And her very weariness was good to her, for her eyes closed and she fell fast asleep.” Of course she awakes and finds it’s come true…

Rooms in children’s fiction are not Freudian symbols of sexual awakening, nor are they cold ivory towers from which it is necessary to be rescued. Children’s rooms are magical personal spaces in which the child is protected and nourished, in which she can learn to be herself and from which she – or he – can explore the world.


Illustration by Garth Williams, from Margery Sharp's 'The Rescuers'