The Twelve and the Genii, by Pauline Clarke

[rachelmanija]

Max, an eight-year-old boy, moves with his family to a new home in Yorkshire. There he discovers twelve old wooden soldiers who come to life when he unpacks them. They all have distinct personalities, plus a history and myths.

Max soon realizes that they are the twelve toy soldiers that the Bronte children played with and wrote about, and whom the soldiers call the Genii: their protectors and Gods. Max and, eventually, his sister Jane become the soldiers' new Genii. But due to the Bronte collection, the soldiers are sought after by collectors and historians...

My favorite thing, an old-school British children's fantasy, with all my favorite virtues of the genre: a strong sense of place, precise prose, vivid images, an unsentimental view of childhood, and small-scale and very magical-feeling magic.

This one captures the childhood feeling of a very small world with very small people in it; you indignantly protest to adults that you're not "playing" with your dolls or animals, because to you "play" means games and silliness, when what you're doing with them is inhabiting and playing out serious dramas in a very real world on a miniature scale. In The Twelve and the Genii, Max comes to realize for the first time that stories don't just exist, they are created: the Brontes created their stories, the soldiers created their own, and Max can create his. Moreover, making stories actually alters reality, whether by literally bringing things to life, making myths that didn't exist before, or making a new life or fame for a writer.

This feels like a classic, halfway between The Borrowers and The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and I’m not sure why it isn’t one. The Claw, I suppose. (I can't find the link, but it's the idea that why one thing takes off when other, similar ones don't is essentially like the claw in the arcade game that comes down and grabs one toy from a giant pile of similar toys.)

The Twelve and the Genii

Comments

[sholio]

The Claw:
https://penknife.livejournal.com/178090.html

This book sounds very relevant to my interests, and I've never heard of it! I'll have to get my hands on a copy.

[yhlee]

This sounds 100% up my alley; thank you for the review!

[legionseagle]

Would love to read. Under another name she wrote Merlin's Magic, which shaped my childhood

[rachelmanija]

I never heard of that. What's it like?

[rachelmanija]

Thanks! And I figured it would be. If you remind me I'll bring it to Mariposa.

[sovay]

The Twelve and the Genii, by Pauline Clarke

Oh, my God, I haven't read this in years.

[cyphomandra]

I love this! It and Peter’s Room by Antonia Forest (also undeservedly obscure) are my favourite children’s books tiffing on the Brontes.

[cyphomandra]

Also I have just found out that as Helen Clare she wrote the Five Dolls series, which I loved and must try to track down.

[lilacsigil]

I remember this book! It had a different cover, with the toy soldiers at the front and Max looming behind them creepily, but I really enjoyed it. And I immediately tried to read Jane Eyre but I was much too young for it and it put me off for years!

[st_aurafina]

Oh, man, the nostalgia of that post...

[st_aurafina]

I have not read this but it seems like something I would have loved as a kid.

[landofnowhere]

I have vague memories of this as a kid (under the US title "The Return of the Twelves") but I'm not sure if it stuck (or if I actually finished it).

[sienamystic]

I've never heard of this book before and am going to scoot off and acquire it right away.

[romsfuulynn]

I remember this book, and loved it.

*

[minoanmiss]

Oh my wow, my inner ten year old needs this book.

[sholio]

Ooh yes, please do! I'll try to remember to remind you.

[landingtree]

Marlows! I love the Marlows.

When I went to the second hand bookshop this afternoon, serendipitously, The Twelve and the Genii and Peter's Room were both there, with nothing else by either author. Thank you for reminding me to check! That's only the second Marlow book I've found in the wild -- and the family copies are so precious and in some cases falling apart that I don't like to borrow them.

[landingtree]

A local second hand bookshop had this: happiness. Thank you for the review!

[cyphomandra]

That’s a fantastic pair of finds!! (and v appropriate) I always check for Marlow books - I do now have a complete set, and half a dozen or so spare copies I can lend to people or take travelling with me.

[legionseagle]

Adorable. It's a bit old-fashioned cosy start off (family in an English village on a hot day in the school holidays) and there's a treasure hunt planned. But then it turns into a four cardinal points of the compass quest to save imagination from the attack of alien robots. There are guest appearances from people like the god Mercury. And a lot of poetry -- Milton, Coleridge and Kipling for three.

[pameladean]

I think I must have read this, just once, and forgotten the title and author. When I read Cat Valente's The Glass Town Game (which is awesome) I kept having strange flashes of memory of another book, and the moment I read "Max" and "wooden soldiers" in this entry I thought, It's the Bronte children's set of soldiers and scholars want them. I'll have to track down a copy. It sounds like just my jam, even if it turns out I haven't read it before.

P.

[ethelmay]

I'm surprised you haven't read it -- it's much easier to find (and was also published in the US as The Return of the Twelves, which is the version I grew up with).

[boxofdelights]

Are you going to be at Wiscon this year? I could bring you a present!