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The same but different
Mar. 21st, 2010 11:14 pmE.W. Hildick, Jim Starling Goes to Town (re-read).
Pamela Brown, Blue Door Venture (re-read).
Both of these are books in which a group of British youngsters (with other adventures chronicled in earlier books in the series) are defrauded by flashy London conmen, and through their own efforts track down the men responsible and have their resourcefulness rewarded. Having said that, there are some key differences. Blue Door Venture was published in 1949, and the children in it, although described as such, are old enough to be working in their theatre full-time, having completed theatrical training; the town they live in is Fenchester, which I presume is somewhere near Cambridge (I haven’t got the other books handy to check for cross-references, but somewhere in the Home Counties), and their interactions with their remarkably tolerant parents as well as with the locals in Cornwall place them clearly in the middle class. Jim Starling, however, and his Last Apple Gang, are from 1963 and from Smogbury, a mill town two hundred miles north of London, younger (still at school), and definitely working class.
( The basic plots, however, run along very similar lines. )
Pamela Brown, Blue Door Venture (re-read).
Both of these are books in which a group of British youngsters (with other adventures chronicled in earlier books in the series) are defrauded by flashy London conmen, and through their own efforts track down the men responsible and have their resourcefulness rewarded. Having said that, there are some key differences. Blue Door Venture was published in 1949, and the children in it, although described as such, are old enough to be working in their theatre full-time, having completed theatrical training; the town they live in is Fenchester, which I presume is somewhere near Cambridge (I haven’t got the other books handy to check for cross-references, but somewhere in the Home Counties), and their interactions with their remarkably tolerant parents as well as with the locals in Cornwall place them clearly in the middle class. Jim Starling, however, and his Last Apple Gang, are from 1963 and from Smogbury, a mill town two hundred miles north of London, younger (still at school), and definitely working class.
( The basic plots, however, run along very similar lines. )
