I wish to break the rules...

Wished by Lissa Evans (David Fickling Books, 2022)

The Book of Beasts (The Strand magazine, 1899); Five Children and It (T. Fisher Unwin, 1902) by Edith Nesbit 

All You've Ever Wanted (Jonathan Cape, 1953); The Serial Garden (Big Mouth House, 2008); The Gift Giving (Virago, 2016) by Joan Aiken

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"This is a story about wishing."   

Rumer Godden 

When you read a book by an author who sees the world through children's eyes, you know you are in the presence of something very special indeed. Whilst the writing of Kenneth Graham, Lewis Carroll and even J.M. Barrie are held up by some as the quintessential classics of children's literature, I would rather claim E. Nesbit as by far the best of the 'Golden Age' writers in this regard and certainly as the first great children's writer. Personally, I have always felt that Alice, The Wind in the Willows and Peter Pan seem to observe childhood with the experience and from the distance of adulthood (all of which books, to be honest, leave me cold). But Nesbit demonstrates time and again, across her output, that she simply got children and she wrote for them. 

Take one of my very favourite Nesbit short stories: The Book of Beasts (1900) tells the story of Lionel, a little boy who is crowned king in the opening pages. His first action is to break the rules and open the alluring, eponymous magical book in the palace library. The Prime Minister warns him not to do so, as do various adults, but Lionel has to see for himself what is so special about it. Why do these irritating adults keep things to themselves? Why can't they leave me alone and free to find out stuff? While the adults may mean well for Lionel - the book does create chaos across the kingdom - ultimately, it is Lionel who teaches himself self-control and, most importantly, responsibility. (I am unsure what Alice - an equally curious child - truly learns as a result of her adventures in Wonderland; and consequently I am left curious what her story offers its young readers.)

For children, fantasy is very much a genuine reality ('Why shouldn't I be able to fly?', "Why can't I have all the money I want?') and the urge to break down and break free from the (apparent) suppression of the grown-up world is explored in the Psammead books (1902 et seq.). It is precisely the act of wishing that is so meaningful for children. Nesbit understood absolutely how children, 'trapped' by the rules and regulations of the adults around them, strongly desire to debunk these and live their own lives. And she never becomes preachy. Even in the little narrative commentary she puts in from time to time, her voice staunchly avoids patronising arrogance, an 'I-know-best-because-I'm-an-adult' tone. When faced with the stark uselessness of their wishes - flying has its drawbacks, money can't buy you happiness - it is the children (not the Nesbit-narrator, not the pompous Psammead) who realise the moral of their actions and change and grow as a result.  

Later, Joan Aiken was to take up Nesbit's mantle in this regard. Her short stories, particularly the Armitage tales, perpetually revel in the exuberant joy, but also the frustrating restrictions, of children's fantasies. Where Aiken builds on Nesbit is in how she leaves the conclusions to be drawn by her young readers, not necessarily her characters. She also plays with the idea of the fallible adult (shock-horror!). In All You Ever Wanted , Aunt Gertie provides her young niece Matilda with a range of 'wishes', one for each birthday. These are invariably troublesome and in some cases downright annoying, Matilda being plagued by her aunt's whimsy. Only when she herself comes of age as an adult, does Matilda manage to break the fantasy her aunt has created. So even here, Aiken is on the side of the child - she makes a grown-up destroy the magic, not a child (though her last line demonstrates in a brilliant irony that she perhaps has more time for the 'wishful adult' than the 'sensible' one!). 

Nesbit and Aiken are both children's writers par excellence, and I read and re-read their work with the same joy and admiration. So it was with extraordinary, unexpected delight that in Lissa Evan's new book, Wished, I could sense the heritage of Nesbit and Aiken being built upon. 

Wished is an old-fashioned story in that it draws on that universal and very intense aspect of being a child which all the great writers of children's books have explored - the idea of breaking free and still making good of things. By 'old-fashioned' I do not mean 'dated' or 'irrelevant', certainly not 'quaint', and by no means 'cute': this is clearly a story for today's children. Like Nesbit and Aiken in their turn, it is unsentimental, original, honest and true. 

This is perhaps Evan's greatest strength in Wished. She demonstrates a virtuoso, instinctive ability to 'write into childhood'. (This phrase has cropped up and briefly explored with a few different authors in Nikki Gamble's 'Audience With' series 2022; a potent phrase, as yet not quite defined, but one which makes perfect sense in the context of writers who are able to see through the eyes of the child.) Here, Evan's children - Ed, Roo and Willard - are real, not cardboard cutouts of a species defined by adult design. There is much truth in the story; truth that makes itself felt by children through simply being authentic; truth that all children know but perhaps can't express; truth that some adults, sadly, never saw when they had the chance. 

Wishes are chances like that. The magic candles in Wished only last for a few moments - light them, wish and - pfff! - they're gone - so make sure you make your wish a good 'un. In the case of 'story' wishes, magic likes to be tricksy, so take care in your phrasing (Ed's wisdom is beyond his years in this regard - he's probably read about sand-fairies!)...but who would want to miss the opportunity of having a go?! In this way, wishes are about having courage and hope, too: qualities that children (and adults, actually) must have represented in their literature.

What makes the wishes happen in stories? Some magical spirit - fairies or genies are popular - a 'magic lozenge', a stone with a hole in it...Candles for birthday cakes are surely ideal, their spell known to all children! But...the ephemeral, fleeting duration of childhood is counted down in birthday candles - light them, wish and - pfff! - the years are gone. Don't miss the opportunity; don't grow up too soon; enjoy it all while it lasts. It's perhaps a rather more hidden truth of the story, but it's definitely there - in the touching end particularly - for the reader to sense and reflect on for themselves. And as Evans' says 'Some things [are] beyond words' (p. 250). 

Although I have focused almost exclusively on the deeper, serious intent of Wished, it must be said that this book has made me laugh out loud more often than many of recent years. Evans shares the same hard kind of whimsy with Nesbit and the dryness of wit with Aiken, which makes the book an absolute joy. There are frequent places in the story where there is simple exuberant fun to be had, such as Attlee's preference for 'Fishee Treats' and 'Rabbit Flavour Delites for the Senior Puss in your Life', names that could have come straight out of an Aiken story; and the dialogue is a dream throughout. In this little gem of an extract, some very important items have just fallen into the sea, out of reach of the two boys: 

'Can we reverse?' asked Willard, turning to look over his shoulder. 'No, never mind, I think they're starting to sink. Yes, they're definitely sinking. One of them's just sunk, the other's still sinking. Still sinking. Still sinking. Sunk.  

(p. 139) 

Elsewhere, the humour, while still extremely funny, is woven through Evans' 'writing into childhood'. The following is taken from a part of the story where the three children are reading an old "girls' own" adventure story (the extract from which is printed in bold):  

'I have a surprise for you Veronica,' said Miss Beale, the headmistress of Fenchurch Hill School for Girls. 'Usually, the winner of the Lower Sixth Mathematics Prize gets a silver cup, but this year I received a letter from the International Space Agency, offering a place on the Jupiter Mission to the girl with the greatest talent for numbers'

I don't think that would ever happen,' said Willard.

(p. 102) 

The pastiche 50s adventure-story writing is so lazy that Willard immediately debunks its ridiculousness, probably in the same way that many children would have done with similar literature offered to them mid-twentieth century. Evans' writing is sharp, smart...and she is on the side of the child.

It is always interesting to see what an author does with the grown-ups in children's literature. Here, at the start, Ed and Roo's Mum is so busy with organising everything that she isn't even physically present but takes part in dialogue by means of CAPITALISED SHOUTING! from adjacent rooms. Later, their Dad turns up at the house where the wishes have started to kick off, but is emphatically not allowed in. He calls through the letter box (distinct whiffs of Aiken's The Serial Garden here, with Mr Armitage locked in the larder) but Ed, Roo and Willard are determined he will not be party to - and certainly not part of - the magic. This scene may be wreathed in comedy but the intent is clear: the children will sort it out, they are learning responsibility their way. 

While Wished may feel, in a very good way, 'old-fashioned' it is distinctly modern. At the same time as it re-views the age-old concerns of children, it speaks with today's sensibilities to today's children. Evans writes: 

In Wished, I wanted to write about what current children, raised on the instant magic of screens, would do with a set of wishes.

Oddly enough, surprise surprise, it turns out that children today don't seem to be very different from the Five Children of a century before! Two wishes in both books are in fact identical, though it must be said that one of them is realised in the most beautiful and transcendent way towards the end of Wished. It is my belief (and I think it might be Evans' too) that while children  may have to deal with, adjust to, and grow within their respective modern worlds, what is unchanging, unswerving, un-different from generation to generation is what childhood is really about, what it means - and has meant - to us all. It is about the joy of breaking the rules...then learning to mend them, or even better, make something newly transformed from them. 

'Screen magic' is only surface-deep, transient, ultimately artificial; 'Wish-magic'...ah, that's something else entirely. 

Miss Filey's wish-list

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Wished by Lissa Evans is published by David Fickling Books on 7th April 2022. The cover is by the inimitable Sarah MacIntyre with magical interior illustrations by Bec Barnes. Special thanks are due to Meggie from DFB for her help in the preparation of this blog.