Forgotten Vintage Children's Lit We Want Republished! discussion

I've been browsing some antipodean lit this evening (and previously), authors like Margaret Mahy (NZ) and also Patricia Wrightson, who has been on my to-read list for awhile (the Wirrun series, beginning with The Ice is Coming, and the The Nargun and the Stars, etc.).

Has anyone read any Wrightson?

Her books don't seem especially easy to find, and I fear, will become more and more scarce. From what I understand, she was an author interested in promoting Australian Aboriginal culture, and in her mind, someone who stayed on the 'inspired by' fringes of it while writing.

According to the many articles I've read, however, many modern Australians seem to think her work falls more into heavy-handed colonialism and cultural misappropriation. It seems as though Wrightson, not an expert nor an Aboriginal, wrote her own derivative spirits/mythology, so as not to run roughshod on actual exisiting beliefs... it sounds to me that she was trying to be considerate, while honestly showing an interest in the culture.

Here's the Wikipedia bit:
Initially, Wrighton's use of Aboriginal myths was appreciated by Aboriginal leaders because of her evident respect and care for their traditions,[15] however, as times changed, Wrightson's use of Aboriginal myths and legends in her fiction came to be questioned by some academics, including New Zealander Clare Bradford, who accused Wrightson of “appropriating and controlling strategies.”[16] Wrightson’s editor Max Macleod stressed that Wrightson’s use of Aboriginal mythology was respectful and inclusive: "She was trying to create a kind of pan-Australia – a whole new Australian mythology which was part non-indigenous and part indigenous."[17]

In 1978 the Aboriginal playwright Jack Davis praised Wrightson’s work to the International Board on Books for Young People. Davis "encouraged her to be even bolder in her writing and, far from giving up in fear, to go on."[18] Brian Attebery, American writer and author of Strategies of Fantasy, wrote "No amount of care can make [Wrightson] into a tribal elder, nor can her use of Aboriginal folklore ever be fully ‘authentic’. However, she can become… a participant in the reshaping of tradition for a modern world in which authenticity is an inaccessible ideal."[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrici...

Anyway, I'd like to read these books, but it's not very cheap or easy to do so.. and I suspect, only going to get harder. There isn't a single Wrightson book on Archive.org or OpenLibrary, either, which doesn't bode well.

I suddenly have a soft spot for all these books which fall out of favour, but were hitherto considered excellent - I would hate for them to be inaccessible. Forgotten and unloved, fine, but surely still available to be read...!

I loved The Nargun and the Stars and An Older Kind of Magic. I seem to remember at the time of publication, especially with The Nargun, that some UK reviewers saw it as an attempt to transfer a British style of children's fantasy to Australia. I can't say I agreed with them. And there is an earlier book, I Own the Racecourse! which is far from fantasy and in today's terms we might see it as a brilliant portrayal of autism. That is well worth reading.

Some other authors I remember are Nan Chauncy who I think set all her books in Tasmania. Titles such as Tangara, Tiger in the Bush and Mathinna's People.

Joan Phipson, Good Luck to the Rider and the one I recall best The Cats, which is about a group of kids who decide to investigate rumours of strange feral cats and find out, sort of, that they are not rumours at all.

Nance Donkin, House by the water.

Denys Burrows, who wrote historical fiction. The only title I can recall is Clipper Ship which is not listed on GR.

And from New Zealand Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow and Joan de Hamel, Take The Long Path.

Len wrote: "Some other authors I remember are Nan Chauncy who I think set all her books in Tasmania. Titles such as Tangara, Tiger in the Bush and [book:Mathinna..."

Oh cool, Len! Boy, you have such a depth of knowledge to draw from - I'm in awe. :) Thanks for sharing these - Phipson I've heard of, but I'm not overly familiar with any of the others.

I've updated the title of this thread to include other authors from down under and thereabouts - antipodean books just don't have a strong presence on GR. It would be nice to bolster them a bit! I'll cross-reference all these onto Listopia in the meantime - thanks very much, Len. ;)

If you want some in print NZ fiction I'd suggest this series.

Oooh! :D Thanks, Sem! Noted!

Capn wrote: "Oooh! :D Thanks, Sem! Noted!"

I'm very interested in NZ writers (mainly speculative and MG) but tracking down copies isn't always easy. Frustrating.

I just finished Roma Mercedes and Fred by N. L. Ray (don't know anything about him/her, and haven't had a chance to look them up). I know there's a separate thread for "Other Books by this Publisher" going, but since these are likely to also be Aussie, I thought I'd dump them here:

Best of the Bunch by Nance Donkin
Sal Salmon and her waifs worked the streets of Sydney Town, cadging money from the passersby. But Girlie had the best act of all.

Chad and the Elephant Engine by Marjorie Filley Stover
Chad lived in a circus. Should he be an acrobat boy, like his father, or an elephant boy?

The Summer Surprise by Joan G. Robinson
Sarah's summer holiday turned out to have not just one surprise, but several.

Gift of the Tarns by Elisabeth Russell Taylor
The knife-grinder was warned about the tarns in the hills. But his son drank the water . . .

Ooh, Mairi Hedderwick is the illustrator! Want! (And obviously she's not Aussie, so... perhaps I should move this post after all)

Out of the World and Back Again by Robert Nye
Four legends about people who are led out of the world and back again.

(WorldCat has 9780001846265/0001846264 for this, 1977, 92 pages, Joanna Troughton listed as author as well - it's illustrated, so guessing she's illustrator)

Contents (WorldCat):
True Thomas
Orpheus and Eurydice
Urashima Taro
Rip Van Winkle

tags: Children's nonfiction
Children's stories
Contes
Fiction
Folklore
Folklore Japan
Folklore Scotland
Juvenile works
Mythology, Greek
Orpheus
Orpheus (Greek mythological character)
Orpheus (Greek mythological character) Juvenile literature
Tales

Another Australian author I've remembered is Hesba Fay Brinsmead, who usually wrote as H.F. Brinsmead

The Ballad of Benny Perhaps
Beat of the City
Bianca and Roja
Christmas at Longtime
Echo in the Wilderness
The Honey Forest
Isle of the Sea Horse
Listen to the Wind
Longtime Dreaming
Longtime passing
Pastures of the Blue Crane
The Sandforest
A Sapphire for September
Season of the Briar
The Silver Train to Midnight and other stories (couldn't find this one on GR)
Someplace Beautiful
Time For Tarquinia
When You Come to the Ferry
Who Calls from Afar?
The Wind Harp

The only ones I can actually remember and probably read were Beat of the City, Echo in the Wilderness, Pastures of the Blue Crane, and Season of the Briar. All well worth reading.

Two further Australian authors of books for the young:

Dafne Bidwell

Tiger Gang and the Car Thieves
The Tiger Gang and the Hijackers
Danger Unlimited

Arthur Russell - There are so many Arthur Russells to choose from it's impossible to know if this link is the right one.

Bungoona: an Australian Story, Boys' Own Paper Office, 1928
Crocodile City
Dream Isle - An Australian Story
MASON'S CIRCUS
The sky pirates
Twenty-Six Australian Stories
Twenty-Six South Sea Stories

The only one of Arthur Russell's I am familiar with is Sky Pirates. This involves an Australian master detective and his boy assistant tracking down a gang of bank robbers that uses aircraft to raid banks in outlying towns in the Australian outback. The one scene I remember is where the teenage assistant has been captured by the crooks and is being tortured to disclose some information. He has been tied up and suspended from a hook in the ceiling with a rope tied round his big toes and is then set swinging like a big pendulum above a burning brazier. When he is rescued and cut down the detective asks him if he is all right and the boy comes out with a wonderfully laconic Australian comment, which is something like: "Yeah, I'm OK... bit sore round the toes." Those Aussies know how to take a punch.

I haven't been able to find out anything about either author. Dafne Bidwell was writing around the 1980s/90s and Arthur Russell between the two world wars. I am sure the list I have given of Russell's books is far from complete as he seems to have written science fiction short stories for pulp magazines in his time.

Oh this is great, Len! I've come across Brinsmead in my GR travels fairly often, but I hadn't really looked at her in depth.. some captivating titles, there!

And the other two are wholly unknown to me! :D Fun!!!