COMMENDABLY, the slow or reluctant reader is a concern of children's writers as well as of teachers and librarians. Many authors write with this group in mind, keeping their prose simple, accessible and fast paced to hold a wandering attention span.
But what about the enthusiastic reader, the child who lives in the library, who loves to receive books for presents, who sneaks a flashlight under the blankets to read at night? This group, to which many writers themselves once belonged, are discriminating readers.
They want more than character sketches and exciting, plot driven stories. They are ready for the challenge of language, deep characterisation and complex ideas. With these children in mind, one must note that in children's literature, as in adult fiction, there are authors who write at a higher literary level than others. Elizabeth O'Hara is one such author.
Elizabeth O'Hara is the pseudonym of poet and adult writer Eilis Ni Dhuibhne. She has written five books for children including three young adult historical novels - The Hiring Fair, Blaeberry Sunday and, most recently, Pennyfarthing Sally. The trilogy follows the fortunes of Sally Gallagher, a peasant girl living in Donegal in the late 1800s.
An intelligent and courageous heroine, Sally's first language is Irish but she has learnt English at school and she has a love of reading and writing.
In the first book, Sally is 13. When her fisherman father dies at sea, she and her sister must be hired out to wealthy families in Tyrone. The second book is set during Sally's 16th summer. Home from work, she falls in love for the first time and has her heart broken. The third book, set a few months after the last, sees Sally working as a governess for a professional family in fashionable Dublin.
All three books are distinguished by their classical, lucid, often beautiful prose. O'Hara will linger over a descriptive passage instead of racing on to the next item of action. Penny farthing Sally begins: "The cherry trees swayed, and showers of pink petals drifted silently to the ground. Under the sugary foam of blossom a gardener moved slowly back and forth. He was dressed all in black, and was carefully raking the gravel path. Even though it was raining, he had been raking for hours, as he always raked, clearing the petals, and etching long straight lines in the grey pebbles. Every day the wind and the children undid his work and every day he did it all over again.
While the central motif is always Sally's life, each book also provides an intricate backdrop of Ireland's life and times. O'Hara does not shy away from social and political themes, but challenges her reader to mature along with her heroine. The Hiring Fair deals with the hardship and loneliness of child labour, Gaelic/English and Catholic/Protestant relationships, meitheals, the position of women including home births and midwives, class restrictions and the fall of Parnell.
Blaeberry Sunday introduces young love with both its romance and its pitfalls, as well as eviction, a child's death, Home Rule and the folklore of Lughnasa. In Penny farthing Sally, we view Dublin at the turn of the century, bicycles and the new invented motor car, Maud Gonne in Yeats's The Countess Kathleen, Douglas Hyde and the Gaelic League, and the onset of the Boer War. A tragic glimpse at the appalling conditions of shanty life in Glasgow is presented through Sally's sister who returns from Scotland with TB.
O'Hara also has a gift for drawing memorable characters. Eschewing cliches and sketchy outlines, she gives them complex and contradictory emotions. None is "all good" or "all bad". Sally has petty traits along with her admirable ones. Her boyfriends display weaknesses as well as strengths. Her employers can be kind as well as selfish and thoughtless. The "foreigners" are a quirky additional touch - Olaf, the Icelandic circus acrobat in Blaeberry Sunday, and the Norwegian Professor Erikson in Penny farthing Sally.
It is always a treat to recognise books which will grace the generations to come long after the latest fads and flavours have worn away. Elizabeth O'Hara's trilogy belongs in that company of classics.
