With synchronicity I was just finally going to post off the out-of -print books of my favourite children's author, to make her a household name in America through a popular blog, when I opened Saturday's Daily Telegraph to find her obituary. I am going to write her name here backwards (I assume that will work) because I don't want any annoying English people, who are suddenly Googling her after reading how good her books are, to arrive here. She is called ainotnA tseroF.

I found her randomly when I was in my early 20's and feeling rather paranoid and sad. Life was all a bit much and when I read children's books (for older children obviously) I was reminded of how cheerful and positive you could be in those days before 'Love' took over everything. Although they are mostly about boarding school they are some of the most realistic depictions of teenage thinking that I have come across. Apparently they were never published in America because they are 'too English'. That is so weird isn't it as children love reading about the different ways that children behave in other countries. As they were written over a long time starting in the 40's the characters are very innocent compared to now but the stories are still gripping. They went out of print here I think when there was a big politically correct purge by the publishing houses of books which weren't 'relevant' to the life of the 'average' child and they said that the lifestyles of the characters were too affluent. How bizarre is that? Do they have no idea what Harry Potter's school fees are? (I can tell you they would be about £20,000 a year).

It is so stupid that having loved her for years I have all her books and had no idea that finding them again would be so difficult. I thought that most of them were still in paperback and was just going to ask Amazon to post them off. Instead they are all now collector's items and even on eBay where I ended up there is brisk and vicious bidding. Luckily they are being reprinted by a tiny private press and eventually should be available again. The annoying thing is that they absolutely have to be read in order as they run straight on and some of the books are really rare. The first one 'Autumn Term' does still seem to be on Amazon if anyone is interested and I could become an intermediary for finding the later ones, maybe.

I can tell that no one will be. But they are really good.
- posted by Iris @ 12/08/2003 12:46:00 AM comment