Piccolo, 1978, 157 p.

Nowadays this would be called a YA novel but it is well worth reading by adults. It is exquisitely written from a pre-adolescent’s point of view. Maria Foster is an only child somewhat neglected by her parents. In her head she talks to animals and inanimate objects and they answer back. She finds them more companionable than any adults she knows.

The book starts with the family on a car journey to take a holiday at Lyme Regis. On arrival at their rented house she can hear both a swing squeaking and, later, a barking dog which no-one else can.

Next door there is a large family also on holiday. Their boisterous behaviour discomforts Maria’s parents but from the vantage point of a tree at the edge of “her” house’s grounds she finds them intriguing. On a trip to the beach she is delighted by the fossils – particularly the ammonites – she finds and begins to learn their names from a book. Martin from next door discusses them with her and they become friendly.

On a visit to their landlady Mrs Shand’s house she notices a sampler stitched by a Harriet Polstead but completed by her sister Susan in 1865 and notes the resemblance to the house in the sampler to the one she is living in. In her head she begins to construct a tragedy which must have befallen Harriet involving a landslip by the beach. Her discovery in the garden of the remains of the swing compounds her forebodings. (Aftbodings?)

Her hearing of the swing and the dog is a light touch of fantasy lending the story an atmosphere of oddness but the writing is clear, precise and excellently done with the characterisation of everyone involved pin-sharp.

This won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award in 1976. I can see why.

Pedant’s corner:- “between hedge and a somewhat unkempt shrubbery” (between a hedge and,) reptilean (x 2, reptilian.)