TOAD the brave, Toad the wonderful, Toad the incredibly handsome. Hapless, silly Toad, the clearly crazed, motorist and "incorrigible rogue" stands in the dock, charged with stealing a motor car and guilty of, "gross impertinence to the rural police".
Almost 100 years ago Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows (1908), a brilliantly funny tale of life along the River Bank featuring Ratty, Badger, Mole and the utterly singular Toad - the spoilt, eccentric, conceited and likable master of Toad Hall. It is extraordinary feat of sharp characterisation and clever dialogue. No one ever forgets it; no one could weary of it.
Bilbo Baggins, hero of J.R.R. Tolkien's masterful The Hobbit, (1937), is discerning, civilised and acceptably greedy. And although his initial aversion to adventure wears off, he never loses his appreciation of his hobbit hole's many comforts, nor of the sound of the singing kettle indicating that after noon tea is on the way. Bilbo's battle of wits with slimy, pathetic old Gollum, "as dark as darkness", who paddles his little boat "with large feet dangling over the side", his pale eyes "like telescopes" ever on the look out for blind fish, is one of the many unforgettable set pieces in a narrative of cliff hanging twists and shifts of fortune.
Near the beginning of Anna Sewell's moving, if cautionary, Victorian polemic Black Beauty published in 1877, the eponymous hero is already beginning to learn about the many hardships life will hold for him, wakes in the night and notices the smell of burning straw. The stable is on fire, and the reader is caught up in the crisis.
"I'm poor Benn Gunn; and I haven't spoke with a Christian these three years," announces the old castaway to Jim Hawkins, already facing his own problems with the terrifying Long John Silver. The boy describe Gunn as "the chief of raggedness clothed with tatters of old ship's canvas and old sea cloth", while the fantastical Gunn, after three years of solitude, remarks: "But, mate, my heart is sore for a Christian diet. You mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese - toasted, mostly - and woke up again, and here I were." Stevenson's legendary Treasure Island (1882) stars human characters - aside from Silver's Parrot - but is no less compelling for its lack of remarkable animals...
AS this brief survey shows, the children's writers of today face a difficult task because of the sheer quality of the best of what went before. This is not intended as a dismissal merely a statement of fact. In the same way, contemporary fiction must still compete with the rich legacy of the 19th century European novel, or contemporary classical music with 18th and 19th century masterpieces. Added to the contemporary children's writer's challenge is the fact that the parent of today is yesterday's child, and we children of yesterday - and I can only speak for this former child - have been so shaped by Scott, Stevenson and Fenimore Cooper, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain and Dickens, even the somewhat goody goodie Louisa May Alcott (and, of course, Grahame's hilarious masterpiece, C.S. Lewis's Narnia books and Tolkien's Middle Earth) that we, the book buyers and providers, are not as familiar with contemporary writers and we may tend to recommend the books we loved. Unless actively involved in ordering new children's literature for bookshops and libraries, adults - even teachers, never mind parents - while they appreciate the best of today's books, perhaps look towards the classics.
There is a strong tradition of outstanding children's illustrators, such as Ernest E. Shepard, who illustrated AE Milne's Winnie the Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), as well as The Wind In The Willows. Many children writers such as Beatrix Potter and Tolkien did their own art work, just as many of today's children's writers, such as Raymond Briggs, also illustrate their own books. But specialist illustrators like the award winning P.J. Lynch share the platform with the story teller. Outstanding natural history, science and educational reference books are now available. But who among the children's authors of today will emerge as the classics of tomorrow?
I have often heard it said that the books which have become established children's classics were not originally written for children. This is true of Jane Austen's novels, which were among the most important reading experiences of my early years, along with Bronte's Wuthering Heights. I should also add Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On the Western Front (1929) - which I first read at 10, and which I knew even then was not a children's book. Incidentally, J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun (1984), a dramatic memoir of a war time childhood, could well emerge as one of the great children's classics of the 21st century. Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1866) was devised for the entertainment of a small girl called Alice. Treasure Island was written for Stevenson's 12 year old stepson. Man has always wanted stories, but children have usually proved the most willing and patient and demanding of listeners. It may be a "question of the book's we read as children, not necessarily the children's books we read.
Not all children's classics were written in the 19th century or predate the second World War. Three domestic pets, an aloof young Labrador, a self sufficient and elegant Siamese and a crowd pleasing old bull terrier, having stayed with the friend of their owner, decide to make their own way home across 250 miles of Ontario's testing wilderness. Sheila Burnford's The incredible Journey (1960) is a sensitive, beautifully written story celebrating heroism and loyalty.
The books we read as children make us readers; they teach us to read, to think; above all, to imagine. The visual image may have supplanted the word in our increasingly visual world. Illustrators have asserted themselves. In a good picture book, the text and the pictures are interdependent. But the word pictures created by great writers are the images which linger in the mind for a lifetime. Some children's books can - and do.
