The truth of the tale
Here is a book for younger readers (7-9 ish?) from a remarkable author of children’s historical fiction.
As it happens, it is an appropriate follow up to my previous post; in its own way, it is about telling the truth to children.
What Emma Carroll very cleverly does is take Hans Andersen’s cringingly maudlin ‘fairy tale’, The Little Match Girl and recast it as a far more realistic picture of the people and conditions it purports to portray.
She transforms the match girl herself into a much more credible character, attracting real empathy rather that the distanced and sentimental pity of the original. She also gives her a name, Bridie, and builds a life for her which, although imagined, is sufficiently based on actual history to paint a convincing portrait of a desperately impoverished child in Victorian London; a child’s life unfortunately representative of so many at that time.
Match strikes
Emma Carroll further extends this shocking picture by including Bridie’s mother. Working in the factory that produces the Match Girl’s actual wares, she has to endure appalling working conditions, including what we would now consider inhuman hours, subjecting herself to serious illness through constant proximity to the highly noxious phosphorus then used for the match heads.
Although embracing a little of the magic from the original story, even this Emma Carroll handles far more purposefully. Bridie’s visions in the flames of her ‘magic matches’ only serve to highlight the injustices of the social order and the unfeeling selfishness of the industrialist owners.
Without over-complicating matters for her young audience, Emma Carroll , skilfully builds her story to demonstrate the power that strikes and workers’ solidarity (especially here that of women) played in gradually bringing about much needed reforms. improvements in working and, ultimately, in living conditions. This is a rather different, and far more truthful, picture of ‘The Victorians’ that I suspect many children end up gleaning from their National Curticulum teaching - and huge thanks and admiration are due to Emma Carroll for making this available to young readers. Even more credit to her for doing it in a way that is always engaging and never comes across as heavily didactic.
Seeing red
Another very significant plus indeed for this little volume is provided by Lauren Child, whose illustrations turn an important and well told story into an absolutely stunning book. Her copious images carry a remarkable power and potency despite (or perhaps because of ) their relative simplicity of style. They reflect the content of the narrative splendidly, adding considerably to its atmosphere and excitement. It is impossible to describe as anything but striking the way the dominant greyscale tones are dramatically highlighted by occasional splashes, swirls and flares of red
The author’s and artist’s commentaries at the end of the book, and especially the authentic period photographs that accompany them, further bring home the reality of the living and working conditions portrayed in the story.
It is a small book which packs a big punch; in truth, a little treasure. It is more than a match for the original story, in fact it is a very considerable improvement,