The Growing Season (a/k/a The Magic Summer) bothered me a lot also. These kids think their father is dying, and their mother has just flown off to take care of him in some disease-ridden corner of the globe, and the family is so completely bereft of social/familial contacts that the kids have to be shipped off to an elderly relative in rural Ireland? (I mean, we're an introverted, not-very-sociable family, and in a similar situation, we'd have had at least a half dozen families of friends and relatives demanding to care for our prickly, picky, bookworm of a daughter ... .) As the oldest daughter of a family with a dysfunctional mother, I really felt for Penny as well, but I have a distinct feeling that Streafield felt she was being modern by having Aunt Dymphna get Alex to do wash. This was still the 1960s - Women's Lib existed but was far from internalized in most families.
Elsewhere you mentioned Circus Shoes as having the same problem. But actually, that one was somewhat different. Two things are going on there.
First, Peter's and Santa's real problem - especially Peter's - is meant to be that they thought they were socially superior. Santa also likes to take the easy way out. These are always sins in Streafield, where everyone is meant to know how to work and earn a living.
Second, Streatfield doesn't really believe in infallible adults. In Circus, Gus is by no means meant to be a great guardian. And he knows he's being unfair. Actually, he's got a somewhat similar personality to Peter - which is part of the reason why they clash so much. The other paternal figure in the book, the old horseman Ben, actually does quite a lot of explaining. He's rather bewildered by Peter and Santa, but he doesn't mind telling them what's what, and mostly he's pretty kind about it. Most strikingly, Ben never contradicts or reprimands the kids in front of others: he saves the lecturing for when it's just them.
Most of Streatfield's adults are pretty fallible, when you get down to it. Harriet's mother Olivia is one of the few all-arounders: both kind and competent. My favorite book of hers, Apple Bough, has two completely space cadet artistic parents who cannot be trusted to care for their four children on their own. (The oldest girl, their governess, and their paternal grandfather end up plotting together to straighten things out.)
I'm not saying that Streatfield's worldview is not flawed - it is - or that she has particularly great ideas about handling traumatized kids - she doesn't. But it may be worth noting that I've heard when Circus first came out, British reviewers mainly condemned Peter and Santa as characters, because they were wimps who wouldn't suck it up and play the game. (You might also be interested in this site, if you haven't seen it previously.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 08:35 pm (UTC)The Growing Season (a/k/a The Magic Summer) bothered me a lot also. These kids think their father is dying, and their mother has just flown off to take care of him in some disease-ridden corner of the globe, and the family is so completely bereft of social/familial contacts that the kids have to be shipped off to an elderly relative in rural Ireland? (I mean, we're an introverted, not-very-sociable family, and in a similar situation, we'd have had at least a half dozen families of friends and relatives demanding to care for our prickly, picky, bookworm of a daughter ... .) As the oldest daughter of a family with a dysfunctional mother, I really felt for Penny as well, but I have a distinct feeling that Streafield felt she was being modern by having Aunt Dymphna get Alex to do wash. This was still the 1960s - Women's Lib existed but was far from internalized in most families.
Elsewhere you mentioned Circus Shoes as having the same problem. But actually, that one was somewhat different. Two things are going on there.
First, Peter's and Santa's real problem - especially Peter's - is meant to be that they thought they were socially superior. Santa also likes to take the easy way out. These are always sins in Streafield, where everyone is meant to know how to work and earn a living.
Second, Streatfield doesn't really believe in infallible adults. In Circus, Gus is by no means meant to be a great guardian. And he knows he's being unfair. Actually, he's got a somewhat similar personality to Peter - which is part of the reason why they clash so much. The other paternal figure in the book, the old horseman Ben, actually does quite a lot of explaining. He's rather bewildered by Peter and Santa, but he doesn't mind telling them what's what, and mostly he's pretty kind about it. Most strikingly, Ben never contradicts or reprimands the kids in front of others: he saves the lecturing for when it's just them.
Most of Streatfield's adults are pretty fallible, when you get down to it. Harriet's mother Olivia is one of the few all-arounders: both kind and competent. My favorite book of hers, Apple Bough, has two completely space cadet artistic parents who cannot be trusted to care for their four children on their own. (The oldest girl, their governess, and their paternal grandfather end up plotting together to straighten things out.)
I'm not saying that Streatfield's worldview is not flawed - it is - or that she has particularly great ideas about handling traumatized kids - she doesn't. But it may be worth noting that I've heard when Circus first came out, British reviewers mainly condemned Peter and Santa as characters, because they were wimps who wouldn't suck it up and play the game. (You might also be interested in this site, if you haven't seen it previously.)